they have gone about so carelessly and sloppily, making policy as red meat to their >> here is a look at our primetime schedule. speaking at the annual conservative political action conference known as cpac. withspan 2 it is book tv authors who appeared on our afterwards program. in american history tv with events looking at relations between the united states and the soviet union. >> this weekend, the saturday morning at 9:30 a.m. eastern we're live from the library of virginia in richmond for a symposium on civil war monuments.

how public perception of confederate monuments has changed. sydney collegen professor on the rise of tobacco consolidating the power of merchants. >> instead of accepting the price i'm going to send the tobacco over to england on my own account and i'm going to pay a commission to market it there for me. large planters in virginia and maryland to the english merchant. most in london. we continue with our series of interviews with prominent african-american women from the black leadership oral leadership , from 1957 to 1998 and received the presidential medal of freedom and congressional gold

medal. even in myp, and religious experience working with people of different how much backgrounds, goh one of those things together, there is no superior or inferior. what happened to president lincoln's family after his assassination? >> convinced his mother may do himself harm and prompted by a team of medical and legal experts robert lincoln filed an affidavit to have his mother tried on charges of mental incompetence. she could be held against her will do to insanity. for a complete schedule go to c-span.org. >> for the next hour and 10 minutes a book tv exclusive.

our cities tour visits fresno, california to learn about its new unique history. we have traveled to u.s. cities bringing the book seem to our viewers. watch more of our visits at c-span.org. ♪

>> when that plane crash , in 1948, woody guthrie was in new york at the time. one of the great folk icons that he is, he heard the news reports and he really was upset at the omission of the names. he had traveled to the san joaquin valley. he was familiar with the plight of the migrant farm workers at the time. he was upset by the omission of the names. he wrote a poem about it. tried to restore the dignity of those anonymous passengers. he said in his poem goodbye to rosalita, allye they will call you will be

deportees. is what caught my attention. is that all they will call us? i call from a family of migrant farmers. who is day? what do they call you. that was a poetic piece of that lyric. there were talks between mexico and the united states, this is the early 1940's. the results of those beversations, how can mexico an ally to the u.s. during this time of need? was a programthat , working arms. so america said we could use more workers here. they began this program that started to literally bus and

train people in. that, theseries of pilot program, they imported 4000 workers. it was such a success by the farmers standards. they had upwards of 40, 50,000. they were not only being used for agricultural labor, they were being used to build railroads and all kinds of things during world war ii. after the war is over, what do we do with the brothers and sisters we have invited to work with us? the politicians in the

central valley of the time would come out and state that. they can send them back when we are done. in 1948, here we are. after the war has ended, they began -- actually in 1947 they begin sending back as a mass deportation. they would do mass roundups because this is where a big portion of workers had come. in some cases the workers contracts were up. in some cases they were here without papers. in some cases they were rounded up. in many cases throughout history from the 30's, 40's into the 50's, some were american citizens they were sending back. the dragnet was so wide.

they rounded up anybody who looks mexican. that is what was happening that morning. they had rounded up a group of workers. they were deporting them. the had just heard to use airplanes. d.c. three.let's call it a let's do away with the aroma of war. let's clean them up. so that is what they did. 1948, this airplane left oakland, california. as it took off it was heading towards tijuana to drop off 20

mexican citizens. that airplane had a pilot, a stewardess, the pilot's wife. immigration officer. flight, cominge into fresno county, flying over the diablo mountain range the plane experienced difficulty with the left engine. it caught fire. the plane began to tumble into the air. the ranch owners, the family on the property, they witnessed it. prison campnearby there. a minimum-security place. they all saw it happen. they witnessed it.

a lot of those folks, i interviewed for the book. it changed the life not just for the passengers of the people who witnessed it. that was what was happening that morning. the media's report of the was the, at the time it worst airplane disaster in california's history. media, a lot of the reports referred to them as deportees. all of the newspapers, there was no mention of the names with the exception of one newspaper. to newspapers. attemptno bee made an to publish the names a couple of days after the accident. they were badly misspelled. some look like they were spelled

inadequate. it was an attempt. they only a published a dozen names. the only newspaper that actually did publish the names, the popular belief at the time was maybe they didn't have access to the names. where were the names? how did they find the names? myself, there was a manifest somewhere. it was a government program. somebody has the names. published inticle a spanish-language independent newspaper, only publish in fresno at the time with the mexican community here for the mexican farmworkers. newspaper list says here are the names of the dead who died in this plane crash. here's their hometowns, here are

the surviving family members. it lists all of them. articleound that it was a jackpot. a spanish-language newspaper did them justice. just saying there names. a basic human right. it wasn't trying to spew some bias. just here are their names. that newspaper published it. that came to me by way of one of the family members. familyfound the first member here in fresno, california. they knew the story. do you have a list of the names. i said i do but the list i have is inaccurate. he said i have a list. hang on, he opens this envelope and reaches an and pulls out stained, wrinkled

newspaper from 1948. the mexican consulate had sent his family this newspaper as evidence of the family members death. the family kept it for 60 years. he gave that to me. that is the only surviving newspaper. i've search for other copies and have not found any. one of the things i knew about this story, i didn't want this story, i didn't need to him be a wet with any political agenda. the story was a human story. the story was a metaphor already. it had metaphor. here is this one vehicle ,ransporting 28 mexican people four of them caucasian. the pilot. a world war ii hero. the copilot also a world war ii

hero. the pilot you would want. he had crash landed. that was a graveyard for those planes. he crash landed safely there. in thatlown that plane specific area. they had only been married the year before. they were just turning their lives. he was going to retire and go back to working for the military again. so, his wife was not a stewardess. his wife was at the time, i'm not sure what she was doing.

she was a stewardess. she had no business being on the airplane. the stewardess cannot make it that morning. .ne of them was hung over she called in sick. at the time you couldn't fly without legally having someone on board of service. frank said his wife would you want to come with us? >> frank said july to come with us? she jumped in the plane with them. only two weeks before the had experienced difficulty in another airplane. his wife had made a comment to friends and families that if something would ever happen to frank, i would want to be with him. that was just two weeks before she actually was with him when that plane crashed down. i was able to interview the family and i learned that other than being newlyweds, frank was

an amazing young man. commentse most amazing , the grandson and nephew, he said to me the store that impacted me most in the book is the story of frank atkinson. that blew my mind. one of the grandsons of a migrant farmworkers who had to come over and make it on his own, he saw in french atkinson. i said why? said because as a young man i could relate to what he was doing for his family. he would go out and cut rail ties and make $.50. he said i remember during that same thing in mexico for my mother. i would bring her back the change i was making. i knew early on that this book, all i had to do was talk about the humanity about each of the people aboard that airplane.

the last lover letter he wrote home to his wife, one he wrote home in which they were preparing for their wedding. i put that side-by-side with one of the last love letters that the passenger ramon said tom to his wife sent home to his wife. he is telling his wife back home i know we have a few garbanzo beans, sell them, i'm going to be sending money soon. we see those two letters , all the glaring humanity is eliminated in that. push any of the sort of political rhetoric around that, or in view the book with any of that. the humanity is palpable. you read those letters and you men workinghese two hard for their families.

january 1948, the funeral services happen right here at holy cross cemetery in fresno, california in the central valley. four or 500 people are here. the service had to 28 coffins lined up. on that day, while they were doing the service, they only interred a few of the coffins because it would have taken two days to inter-all 28 coffins. they interred a couple of coffins before the crowd. once everybody dispersed and went about their lives, the coffins were put underground. then there was -- as i understand it -- years later, someone donated a placard. that part is uncertain because there is no record of it. years ago, someone donated a placard. the placard was anonymous. said 28 mexican

citizens died in a leg rash -- in a plane crash. of 28 people died, rest in peace. it was a small little placard and it was set there. then just a giant patch of green grass, where they don't allow any other headstones. people walked by and think it is a beautiful spot and inquire about buying it and they can't, because it is where all of these are buried. until i came upon the story in 2010 and learned of it, i had to find out where they were buried. it was astonishing, i found that was were buried in what considered the largest mass grave in california's history up until that point. all the remains of the passengers pushed into this grave, covered over, and an

anonymous plaque or. that was it. i asked if they had the names. they said they would look at the file. they came back and said they don't have the names. they have the file, but on that file, where every name typically goes, it just says mexican national 28 times. even they were kind of astonished by that. they weren't around at the time. one of them was new at the time. and wei started talking were looking for the name. i want to the hollow records in fresno, california. they've could only give me access to one person. they have official business, maybe you could go. he said he would do that. about a week later he calls me and says he had a list of names and gave it to me. we looked at the list of names

were excitedwe because it was the first, middle and last names. some were still wrong, but it was a start. it was that list of names that led me on a search. i asked him that. , you are ait take cemetery director, to put them on a headstone here? would take two things -- permission from the bishop and money. i have asked how much money and he said at lease $10,000. i told him to work on getting permission from the bishop but i would work on the money. that, imonth prior to was with a good friend of mine, a local musician. we had been collaborating on this project. to ourselvest said

once we find a list, we should figure out how to put a headstone there. i already had that idea cooking. he is a beloved musician, so i artistat if i have the power, musician power, we could raise the money. and we did. within three or four months, we raised $1400 -- $40,000. installeday 2013, we the headstones behind me. that had some is now a four by eight granite slab. it is in english and spanish and tells you what happened, and it has the names of every passenger on board including the crew. then it has 32 leaves around the stone, because of woody guthrie's lyrics -- who are these friends scattered like dry

leaves? one of the beautiful things of this memorial headstone behind me is we have still included in the foundation that original to show original plaque how it went from anonymity. some of it of value, that a lot weit, especially today as enter a new administration, we start to hear everywhere, not just politicians but people in polar of us ramp up versus them or immigrants versus americans. that kind of rhetoric is out there. i feel like we are just lost in that. i'm feeling a part of that is intentional.

it's the human face behind it. i feel like this book really provides the opportunity for us to look through that rhetoric, to cut through it, and look at mexicans,ituation, 28 for american citizens, all ofshed and all regardless race, regardless of social status, regardless of spiritual belief or background, they all met the same fate together. none spared. in the end, they were one vehicle deported to that place in the sky. i hope that is what people taken that is we are all in this together. ♪

>> of the books i have written is called harvest son and it's a , andinto my family's past then trying to plant roots in american soil. they see the contradictions of america, the racism of it, and the struggle to try to establish himself. historically japanese-americans had a vibrant agricultural community. it was the only entry point for a lot of them in american economy certainly redecoration and internment -- relocation and

.nternment in world war ii .y generation has shifted we call itself third generation in america. on some parts of california, utah, idaho, wyoming, colorado. >> the experience of my parents during relocation in world war ii was very common. there was crisis, there was turmoil, there was hysteria. they did not know what to do. they realized they had to just accept what was happening. do their own type of civil acceptience, but really the broader frame of the history that was unfolding along with

all the chaos and uncertainty. growing up they rarely talked about it. only started piecing together stories i heard here and there, reading about it and understanding what a traumatic moment it was when you are trying to establish yourself here in america and trying to literally plant roots here, but also at the same time understand this is a country that did not want them. that told them they were the enemy. of course the i ready for my parents, they were born here. back home was here. it was that struggle. as i grew older and began to the idea ofart of struggle. i think of the struggle i went through word worth by that moment in history and how they had the resilience to work through that and then come back and literally plant roots here in the valley on our farm. my parents did not talk about it.

my dad was this traditional stoic farmer. hardly said anything. my grandmother only spoke japanese and my japanese was not good. they would not talk about it. they carried within them a kind is embeddedilt that when you are accused of something you are not. as a writer i began to try to probe into this. talk to other families and gradually, and took time. gradually at the end to hear stories from my father, my mom and my dad would talk about burning some wood from dead trees. he said let me tell you about a fire i once made and he told me a story of how when they had the leaves, my dad was that had to leave, my dad was so mad he said they would burn all the positions they had they could not carry, because he didn't want to leave them for people

who would want them. this is my quiet reserved farmer dad. it was amazing to hear the stories. gradually as a writer you begin to piece together the stories. the one take away i had from silence.this idea of it is hard to write about silence because writers think about words and dialogue. part of my writing was embedded in the history of understanding what that silence means, and how that silence carried everything from their shame and guilt, but also their resilience that they to come back to here in california, to say we are america, we are part of america. before theonly and war, as most japanese-americans did not. when my parents came back after the relocation cap's, my father realized the way to get ahead in america was to own property.

gamble ands huge bought 40 acres that we farm now. my grandmother, she was appalled. i heard about this story. they argued, because my buydmother said why do you land here in america because they take things away? and she was absolutely right. because of the hysteria of world war ii, they took everything away from japanese-americans. she was right to have this bitter attitude. that inr understood order to establish yourself, you needed to become a farmer. you needed to transition from farm worker to farmer. he bought this land. that day that they were leaving this rented shack that they lived on moved into this house that this is -- that was on this property, my grandmother refused to go. she stayed in this little shack and my dad got bad.

in the carwould wait until the sunset. car, and aftere the sun letdown down, my grandmother came out of the house carrying this black suitcase with the stencil number of our family internment numbers , and they got into the car and in silence they drove to this new farm. that is how our firm started. -- our farm started. capturing that whole sense of history that i try to write about. it is one of my favorite stories that i wound up writing about. thinking about how things begin and how farms are part of this whole wave of history that embodies all the elements of history. our farm faced many challenges. it was really into generations.

what is my dad's generation. post-world war ii, no one wanted to buy food grown by the enemy, which was japanese-americans. they struggled. amazingly, they did what a lot of good farmers do. they did together and farmed cooperatively. they found ways to work through the system and work the system. the overt racism wasn't there, but there still embedded in the dynamics. drive that you need to expand your farm, you need to grow things that are cheaper, that are more efficient and more productive. i came back thinking that is not the farm i want to do. i want to grow something that .as quality, that has flavor and again, had that back story that came with it. that is one of the reason i talked to my dad and started

farming organically. as heart of the public that appreciates this value we are growing. to the course of our family history, we were driven by value more than anything else. my grandparents didn't come to america because they wanted to suddenly become the wealthiest people in the world. they were driven here by dreams and hope. my parents came back from the relocation camp to farm because they were driven by desperation, and also a sense of wanting to become american and plant roots here. knowingack to the farm that i wanted to continue that legacy in many ways. at the same time, write and tell stories. of farm kidslot they grew up in the 60's. i couldn't wait to get off the farm. no one want to do farm. i grew up in a lively japanese community.

all of us went off to college. that was the goal for all of our parents and generation to get the kids off the farm, get them educated so they can find something better. i ran up to a college that i thought would never bring me back to farm or i went to berkeley, studied sociology. i spent two years living in japan as an exchange student. that changed my life. it was retouching a culture that was around me, yet realizing i was not japanese, i'm a japanese-american. i spenthe two years, about half the time working a small little rice farm my grandmother had left, and working alongside her mother. i remember thinking this is exactly what i am trying to run away from. what is it? it was the call of the land. i did not understand how to grow rice. understand how to grow

rice, but i understood how to grow peaches. i had to come back here to see what this was like. i came back and shocked my dad, saying i want to format -- to form -- to farm the little with you. so the transition was wonderful that my dad was very quiet and very reserved. the farmme back to started making mistakes, there was a lot of just a few soft grunts, nodding their head, and then silence. that is when i began to go crazy. tell me, and by doing right, wrong, how do you feel about it? and he's wonderful, he just allows me to fail. that was the biggest take away i had. when i came back, i looked at the landscape of farming and understanding the growing pressure to grow in size, to grow crops that are designed for

a mass-market. doame back wanting to something different. that is why we started farming organically, and at the same time hoping this precious fruit we grew was fit in inorganic onketplace that favored -- -- an organic marketplace that favored the quality we grew. about if my role is as, a mentor, or is it just passing it on? turns out, it is a little of everything. i think my daughter wants us to be part -- partners. the best teachers you have her teachers, not partners. maybe this is a millennial way of looking at the world, where it is much more inclusive as

opposed to hierarchical. we are evolving a new relationship. she is a partner on the farm. who could complain about that? i have to stop myself from thinking this is not the story, the narrative i thought was going to happen. it is a unique narrative. this is a rock for a japanese-american, understand the whole legacy of immigration that affected my family when they first arrived in japan, and understanding california agriculture that is swirling and turning and growing and expanding, all it was a time this whole issue of immigrants are part of the fabric of agriculture. the workers that we have are part of this whole new

definition of what does it mean to be an american and an immigrant? they're all part of the food system we have. hope people take away from my stories of my books a sense of authenticity. this is the real world. i am not a journalist spends one summer on the farm and then writes about food. i have lived it, my family has been part of it for generations. .his is what i live and breathe i try to write about that authentic life of farming and being a family at the same time, and the struggles and challenges we have come economic forces, climate change, prices shifting weather. that is all part of what we do on the farm. that is the story of food that i try to write about. -- pe people take away of my book's

patents, parlors, and pretty women. one of the real kind of jumping off points of this aside from the conversations i had with non-southerners about how southern women were beautiful, is the fact that white southern women have a track record of doing very well at miss america pageants. and we can document this. we can see they have won a disproportionate number of titles coming given how many seven states there are. they did especially well in the 1950's and 60's. >> some of the nations most beautiful girls gather for the miss usa beauty contest. i love a parade, don't you? among the pre-decision favorites, miss texas. no sheriff, but very arresting. miss california. ♪

>> the winner, miss alabama. the things they can be difficult to remember is a lot of the practices and rituals we associate with ute were initially very controversial in the south. -- with beauty were initially very controversial in the south. there was a lot of controversy about white southern women entering beauty contest. there would have been bathing beauty contests. held atuld have been seaside resorts like galveston, texas. up and down the eastern coast in virginia, north carolina, south carolina. these contests were held there. not everybody relished the development. respectable white southern women were not supposed to put on swimsuits and stand up before a group of onlookers and strut around in the swimsuits.

there was a lot of controversy. one of the things that i argue really helped these competitions become more palatable is the agricultural fair, which as we know has a very strong history in the world south. -- the rural south. every county had an agricultural fair every year. contests, theauty helpingalways about farm men and women lead more productive farming lives. over the course of the year, they are on their farms, hopefully growing at a cotton, tobacco, corn, whatever it is. internalized and lessons that are being taught by demonstration agents who are being sent out by state labor and colleges. they are sent to teach men how

to grow these crops. they are sent to teach women how to do what they need to do to economy.e to their early on in this process, some sponsor agents start to better baby contests. a better baby contest is pretty much what the title says. it is a contest in which farm women would bring their babies to be judged, and the winner, the best baby, would win the prize. the idea was this would be a way for the the farm families to learn the them for lessons they ofded to learn in terms hygiene, nutrition. there were a lot of problems in the rural south. contests judged these infants, sometimes

toddlers, on the basis of which was the best baby. the issue is that there was often a fine line between the healthiest baby and the baby that looked the most attractive. the agricultural fair had a way of introducing a contest that was really about judging the body. a very young body. ,ou do this for a couple years by about the 1930's, beauty contest aren't seeming quite so controversial as they once were. you have these young men and women of their being judged. it does not take much for the beauty contest. depression.was the you have all these areas in the south that are suffering.

your prices for crops have dropped. of agricultural trade wars. trying to figure out how they can sell their tobacco, their cotton to national and international markets at a time with these health reviews. they start to have very explicitly beauty contests for rural women. that are associated with agricultural festivals and you start to see tobacco queens. cotton queens. peanut queens. is to gete idea there the benefits of the beauty contest. you want to use beautiful women to sell agricultural products

across the nation, across the rest of the world. there might be a little opposition to saying this is a beauty contest and to infighting again women to appear in their swimsuits to be judged just for their beauty. i think by putting them in the agricultural product, these sponsors found a way to deflect criticism. you can find these really womensting pictures of wearing these tobacco outfits while they are on stage being judged. these white beauty queens really serve a kind of public relations function for the white south. the white south did not always -- and for good reason. they reacted violently to black demands for equality. we have all seen the famous places like

birmingham, alabama, where white southerners and police are using attack dogs and fire hoses. the white south did not look very good in the national league media -- the national media. one thing they could do was service public relation ambassadors, and in a way blunt the impact of those negative images that were emanating from the region. issue timen up and magazine or newsweek from the small of 19 56. one thing you will see our pictures of white southerners in places like clinton, tennessee, fighting against the desegregation of the local school system. you will see these white rioters throwing rocks at members of the press, attacking african-americans. in the same issue, you will see a picture of the newly crowned miss america, who hails from the south.

of this function that really says no, we are not a region of violence, not a region of brutality. we are also a region that is home to tradition of grace and tranquility and beauty. not just southerners, but all of america. see whiteans come to southern women as especially beautiful, as the rightful owners of female physical beauty . for black women, this is really difficult. black women have struggled since , and foro claim beauty white women to be given the stage is kind of a slap in the face. there are a couple examples of black southern women talking about this and how they represent -- resents the

consequences of this. i think if you wanted to say in a nutshell the relationship with white southern women versus black southern women, white southern women's relationship to beauty more often than not served to strengthen jim crow. served to strengthen segregation. black women by contrast, more often than not, their pursuit of beauty was more about trying to or segregation. restricted, fight it, attacking in some way. one of the things that i was really interested in was the way could provide black southern women and occupation early on, specifically being a beautician. i think a lot of americans today no steel magnolia -- steel

magnolias. americans might associate the southern beauty shop with white southern women. certainly they become important. early on, the beauty shop as an institution is really integral in black women's wives -- lives in the south. this is because there were a black of really important female entrepreneurs in the beauty business in the south. several became quite famous. they were actually dozens, all over the region. up anyopen african-american newspaper in the early 20th century, you will see ads placed by the local createdan, who have

their on system to help black women groom their hair. what was kind of revealing was the week or two that i was working with census data. i decided to look at the number of women who identified as beauticians in the south. i was looking at black women and white women. , the number of black beauticians in southern states was extraordinary. outpaced the number of white women in southern states who identified as beauticians. , there were over 500 black women who were beauticians in 1920. there were 22 white women. black women figured out early on is that this is a line of work that paid, that gave them some flexibility, and crucially, gave

them financial independence from whites. here is a self-employed businesswoman. you don't have to answer to a white boss in the jim crow south. that is going to be there he attractive, and it was. time the classical phase of the civil rights movement began, these beauty parlors had emerged as really crucial sites to the civil rights movement. i would argue they have played a civil rights role all through the 20th century. on that roletaking in the civil rights movement. and moody in mississippi, she wrote coming-of-age in mississippi. she was arrested in a jackson, mississippi sit in in 1963. one of the things that happened

in that sit in was that all of these white people behind her doused her with condiments. this happened a lot at citizens. in.t sit she knew a beautician would be sympathetic to her. would help her and kind of repair her body in full. she does. all the women who were there waiting to get their hair done insisted she be moved to the head of the lines of the beautician could watch her hair. the pursuit of beauty was very much tangled up others social and political realities of jim crow. was oneuit of beauty way to strengthen jim crow and one way to attack jim crow. it was a set of rituals and

practices that were available to women who were living in the south. how they used it depended on where they were and what they wanted. it was there and it was used in this way. >> when i was a kid, the public library consigned me to the children's room in the basement of the library. the only non-fiction books they had were books on the american west. since i have always been a nonfiction person, i read everything that i could there on the american west, primarily native americans. speaking of the 50's when i was growing up was a time when you had all the movies at the theater, most of them are cowboy movies and cowboy up programs were on tv. it.st fell in love with

1993, i just fell in love with it. i quickly came to understand there was much more to the west then just cowboy and indian fights. just the artistry of the landscape, the culture, the history, a deep history. a history that involved so many different groups. learned not only native americans and anglo-americans, but there were asian-americans and african-americans, hispanic americans, all contributing to culture. the west was far more diverse in many ways. some of the places east of the mississippi.

books i purchased on african-american books in the west, then i will talk about the hispanic west. finally, talk about some of the books on native american culture. forget that african-americans in the west were brought to the west as slaves first in texas into the indian territory. the five civilized tribes were moved to oklahoma and took their slaves with them. african-americans had always been in the west. they didn't just show up suddenly. after the civil war, more african-americans left the south to form communities in the west. asy are referred to exodusters from the word exodus.

book published on the town of nicodemus in kansas. there is now a state park in kansas. it was one of the many all black communities that was formed as a try to find a new life and a place in the american west. movies or ifcowboy you watch cowboy programs, almost 100% of the cowboys are anglos. in fact, over 30% of the cowboys in the west were either african-american, hispanic american, and even native american. fresno, a german community in clovis. they hired many native americans to run their sheep and cattle. this is something you don't see

in the cowboy movies. there were black cowboys. and this book, black cowboys of the old west, it covers that period. you see many of these cowboys, like, worksressed like and did everything just like their white counterparts did. not only were they cowboys, they were marshals and law men. for example, this is a biography , who was a famous marshall in the indian territory under the famous judge parker at fort smith arkansas. he is certainly noted as an outstanding law men of his time. this is a picture of him. he was tough.

worry about sparing himself and catching outlaws. he caught many an outlaw that was brought to justice at judge parker's infamous court. we talk about native americans, even though i had purchased a teary on the indian wars per say, i thought it was very important to buy books on native american culture, especially material culture. , you can see the various part of native peoples. art, this is them sketching in notebooks or on pieces of paper they would find. they were describing because they did not have a written language. they were actually describing

battle scenes. set symbols for what actually was going on. even before the reservation. -- even before the reservation period, native americans were to find a notebook they could ride on. for much of native americans either, we have this art in their accounts or in these notebooks. for the battle of little big horn, there are quite a few ledger books which actually describe the battle and what happened, especially after the battle. these are two of my favorite books. on native american culture. american is entitled indian horse mask. you can see the very decorative

mask that they put on their horses. not only did they paint their horses, but they had horse masks. much moreexample of a modern horse mask. you can find more traditional horse masks from the native american period. each is a warrior horse. they each painted their horse in a specific way given their medicine. is last i want to show you called bridles of the americas. this covers indian silver. this is just an example of the various types of native american silver that was used. native americans had quite extensive trade routes tween each other. you would have items that were

made on the washington coast 1000 miles inland in montana or on the great plains. there was extensive trading, reducedain, we sort of warringmericans to indians, which unfortunately was not always the case. tendsistory of the east to be more white, more white anglo, more protestant in its initial story. west is moref the reflective because from the beginning it is more multicultural and all of its dimensions. that is an important thing for americans to realize in that everybody spanning african-americans, native americans, asian-americans, they have all contributed to the history of the settlement of the west and have shaped the west.

a choice along time ago when i went to the east and started my career in baltimore. i could've gone around the country and maybe written stories, but i decided to come thathere to this place shaped me and try to understand what it was and who the people were. with my old family story. that linked up to the other stories. the stories of african-americans who came west, the japanese, the mexicans crossing the border, they're not very much unlike my grandfather's tail. he came here in the 1920's. poet that was his pen name. the iam and the end of an armenian name means son of. to a more literary

pen name. he was going to be a poet. the armenian genocide broke out and he had to hide out in an toic in istanbul from 1915 1916, 1917. he went up there with his books, all these french poets and short story writers. he became a lover of french symbolism. when he came down, he had a choice -- was he going to remain in turkey after the genocide? he had a chance to go to the sorbonne in paris to study literature. he had an uncle who would come to fresno, california to start again. writing to say there is a new armenia here, a place of value surrounded by alton's just like our old place. as big as jade eggs and the watermelons, if you

carve them out, you can float down the rivers in them. my grandfather took the bait. he had choice between paris and fresno, and he came to fresno. he carved out a life here of farming, being a grocery man and writing poetry. his sons became these jocks, great baseball and football players. that literary themes skipped a generation and then it landed on me. right now we are sitting in my office in northwest fresno, howounded by i don't know many tons of documents that have to do with his history of california and the story of water. that is where we are at. for me, this is heaven and hell. getting up every day and having to write about something, where did i first read about that? and then sorting through all the

stuff trying to figure out where it is. you will see thousands of post-its with topics, each color represents a different topic. that is about as scientific as i get. valley really goes from bakersfield to sacramento and beyond. it is 400 miles long. it is the longest valley in the united states, if not the world. i am talking more about the san joaquin valley. the central valley is made up of two valleys -- the san joaquin and the sacramento. the san joaquin valley is for all these dramas have taken place grade steinbeck's stories. that isplace geographically exiled from the rest of california. it is physically exiled, surrounded by mountains. it is psychologically exiled. it is a place that has its own is backward.s, it

if you come here, it feels very much like the south. it feels like the south for a reason. ingrandfather arrived here 1920, these sons of the continent plantation -- cotton plantation were coming here too. these sons of the plantation had to find a new place to farm cotton. they came west and landed in this valley. it was a lake. it was about 50 miles from here. there was a lake that was 800 square miles in girth. it was the most dominant feature on the california map. the sons of the plantations came west and they'd trained that lake drive. there were four rivers, and they

ended up damming those rivers, turning the meanders of those rivers into straitjackets. as would see that they are straight as a interrogation canal. they have been confined, and in a control flow for the rivers. they put umps along the rivers that would make them run backward so they could control that flow. all those rivers were captured in the name of agriculture. all the rivers in the san joaquin valley are rivers of agriculture. 90% of the flow has been taken by farms. shunted through this lattice of your geisha canals throughout the valley. it is the most industrialized farming in the history of man. really, to begin with the nonfiction literature of this place, you need to start with factories in the fields.

it was written in the depression time. it really put on the map a sense of how industrialized this agriculture was and how we had treated this society where we you had these farmers who did not even call themselves farmers, they called themselves "growers." captured tens of thousands of acres of land and industrialized it. to find a workforce, they went south of the border and imported a workforce. a wholeally imported lower class that came here. created kind of a vast plantation society in a way. that futile structure -- feudal structures still remains in place today. it is a land of tremendous disparity, where the machines

are controlled by maybe 300 families up and down this valley. the majority of the land and water is controlled by a handful. that is the story i have been up where tell, picking factories and feels left off and telling the story of this place. i was born here, spent most of my life here. it is still a mystery to me. drive, ie to take a could take you on a drive that would take 20 minutes. we would begin in the suburbs north of here, where there are some very conservative places that drop -- that voted 60% for donald trump. out there are these big mega churches and mega houses. and then we would drive him those suburbs to downtown fresno. you would have the highest concentration of poverty in the country in these neighborhoods.

you drive 15 minutes beyond and woodland in a rural vineyard in which isalled fowler, the reason capital of the world. surrounded by this whole different kind of life. a beautiful life. quiet, agriculture, but also poverty. you see these three kinds of landscapes. say that you would not find that anywhere else in this country, those three places in one drive. except it is quite a campus to write about. it is a hard place to write about because you have to make certain judgment. it can be a depressing place to write about. of the why so much literature that is come out of here has been fiction and poetry. fresno has a rich history of poets.

fiction,ome great beginning with steinbeck. nonfiction has been more difficult, because you have to dig in with the brokenness of this place. a populart make you person to tell those stories here. i live here, and yet you are writing the stories that not everyone embraces. think the wisest -- among the wisest people i ever interviewed found while doing the king of california. she was 100 years old at the time. from texas, followed the cotton trail west. they stopped along the way. she referred to her children as

stopover kids. a different kid in each place. they landed in corcoran and they picked the cotton. i was interviewing her in that little house on the outskirts of , she was taking me all the way back to the slave days of her grandmother. in that one interview, we were spanning 150 years in history. .emarkable lady she got on the piano and started playing. above the pn our all the photographs of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. wisdom. her voice is one of the powerful voices that i had the privilege of capturing, and her story is told in the king of california.

it has been a joy to be able to oldhis, to travel with this beat up sony tape recorder. i don't even use a digital one. i should. just capturing these stories. place. the history of a i think if you're going to be a nonfiction writer and live in this place, you have to write in -- you're going to have to tell stories that upset the people. that is not an easy thing to do. you are basically telling on your place. much easier to come in from the outside, write what you need to write, scathing or not, and leave. i live here. i'm a pretty polarizing figure. them, the nice thing about king of california

and hopefully the next book is that they hopefully see that i have made an effort to gather the story from the people. it is hard to hold back on certain judgments. , piecesthese books become an indictment of a place. when you live in that place, it is difficult. that fictionfor writer. cultures are telling them the same message that my culture told me, what -- which was to become an attorney or doctor and make a lot of money, they're going to have a hard time. that is what you hope for is that this story continues. thiskind of landscape with many issues is going to evolve

>> our visit to fresno, california is a book tv exclusive. we showed you today an introduction to c-span cities tour. we bring the book seemed to our viewers. you can watch more of our visits /citiestour.n.org c-span we will hear from president trump speaking earlier today at the annual conservative political action conference known as cpac. democratic outgoing national committee chair, donna brazil. giving annual remarks in atlanta. a later, senator chuck grassley holding a town hall meeting in his home state of iowa. president trump spoke earlier today at the conservative political action conference that took place just outside