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Books published by publisher University of Washington Press

  • Messages from Franks Landing : a story of salmon, treaties, and the Indian way

    Charles Wilkinson

    Paperback (University of Washington Press, Jan. 13, 2006)
    In 1974 Federal Judge George H. Boldt issued one of the most sweeping rulings in the history of the Pacific Northwest, affirming the treaty rights of Northwest tribal fishermen and allocating to them 50 percent of the harvestable catch of salmon and steelhead. Among the Indians testifying in Judge Boldt’s courtroom were Nisqually tribal leader Billy Frank, Jr., and his 95-year-old father, whose six acres along the Nisqually River, known as Frank’s Landing, had been targeted for years by state game wardens in the so-called Fish Wars.By the 1960s the Landing had become a focal point for the assertion of tribal treaty rights in the Northwest. It also lay at the moral center of the tribal sovereignty movement nationally. The confrontations at the Landing hit the news and caught the conscience of many. Like the schoolhouse steps at Little Rock, or the bridge at Selma, Frank’s Landing came to signify a threshold for change, and Billy Frank, Jr., became a leading architect of consensus, a role he continues today as one of the most colorful and accomplished figures in the modern history of the Pacific Northwest.In Messages from Frank’s Landing, Charles Wilkinson explores the broad historical, legal, and social context of Indian fishing rights in the Pacific Northwest, providing a dramatic account of the people and issues involved. He draws on his own decades of experience as a lawyer working with Indian people, and focuses throughout on Billy Frank and the river flowing past Frank’s Landing. In all aspects of Frank’s life as an activist, from legal settlements negotiated over salmon habitats destroyed by hydroelectric plants, to successful negotiations with the U.S. Army for environmental protection of tribal lands, Wilkinson points up the significance of the traditional Indian world view - the powerful and direct legacy of Frank’s father, conveyed through generations of Indian people who have crafted a practical working philosophy and a way of life. Drawing on many hours spent talking and laughing with Billy Frank while canoeing the Nisqually watershed, Wilkinson conveys words of respect and responsibility for the earth we inhabit and for the diverse communities the world encompasses. These are the messages from Frank’s Landing. Wilkinson brings welcome clarity to complex legal issues, deepening our insight into a turbulent period in the political and environmental history of the Northwest.
  • Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family

    Yoshiko Uchida, Traise Yamamoto

    Paperback (University of Washington Press, March 11, 2015)
    After the attack on Pearl Harbor, everything changed for Yoshiko Uchida. Desert Exile is her autobiographical account of life before and during World War II. The book does more than relate the day-to-day experience of living in stalls at the Tanforan Racetrack, the assembly center just south of San Francisco, and in the Topaz, Utah, internment camp. It tells the story of the courage and strength displayed by those who were interned.Replaces ISBN 9780295961903
  • Washington State

    Charles Pierce LeWarne

    Hardcover (University of Washington Press, July 1, 2003)
    This revised, updated, and improved edition of the leading high school textbook on Washington State history brings the reader from the earliest known accounts of the region up to the present. Incorporating the newest data from the 2000 census, LeWarne presents a vivid and up-to-date portrait of the cultures and trends that continue to shape Washington State. From the role of Native American tribal governments to the administration of Governor Gary Locke, he examines changes in the political arena including the pivotal events of the 2000 elections. The book addresses a range of ongoing social and economic issues, such as environmental controversies, multiculturalism, and changes in the computer and biotechnology industries.New and expanded material includes:Kennewick ManThe dot.coms, including AmazonMicrosoftGovernor Gary LockeMakah whalingSalmon recoveryWashington’s multi-ethnic communitiesPlus Updated statistical and general material throughout, including latest census and electionsExercises have been restructured to facilitate the use of partial chapters
  • Fifth Chinese Daughter

    Jade Snow Wong

    Paperback (University of Washington Press, Jan. 1, 1989)
    Originally published in 1945 and now reissued with a new introduction by the author, Jade Snow Wong's story is one of struggle and achievements. These memoirs of the author's first twenty-four years are thoughtful, informative, and highly entertaining. They not only portray a young woman and her unique family in San Francisco's Chinatown, but they are rich in the details that light up a world within the world of America. The third-person singular style is rooted in Chinese literary form, reflecting cultural disregard for the individual, yet Jad Snow Wong's story also is typically American.We first meet Jade Snow Wong the child, narrowly confined by the family and factory life, bound to respect and obey her elders while shouldering responsibility for younger brothers and sisters - a solemn child well versed in the proper order of things, who knew that punishment was sure for any infraction of etiquette. Then the schoolgirl caught in confusion between the rigid teaching of her ancestors and the strange ways of her foreign classmates. After that the college student feeling her was toward personal identity in the face of parental indifference or outright opposition. And finally the artist whose early triumphs were doubled by the knowledge that she had at long last won recognition from her family."A sensitive and revealing story of a Chinese American girl's coming of age in America. It is unique." -New York Herald Tribune"A fascinating narrative, not only because of the courage and humour which shine through every page of the book, but also because it shows how the members of a typical Chinese family can adapt themselves to American conditions and take their part in the national life of the United States without losing the essentials of the cultural heritage which they rightly prize." -Times Literary Supplement
  • When the River Ran Wild! Indian Traditions on the Mid-Columbia and the Warm Springs Reservation

    George W. Aguilar Sr.

    Paperback (University of Washington Press, June 17, 2005)
    "Nearly seventy-five years of my lifetime have come and gone since hearing of the sparse historical events from the old-timers," American Indian elder George Aguilar tells us. "It's my turn now." When the River Ran Wild! is Aguilar's recounting of events he heard about while watching his grandmother make moccasins by the light of a coal-oil lamp and while strapped to the back of his aunt's horse on the way to the huckleberry grounds. He learned them at Coyote's Fishing Place, where his uncles built scaffolds and taught him how to use traditional technologies to catch salmon as they made their seasonal runs up the river.In this remarkable personal memoir and tribal history, we learn about Aguilar's people, the Kiksht-speaking Eastern Chinookans, who lived and worked for centuries connected to the rhythms and resources of the great fishing grounds of the Columbia River at Five Mile Rapids.When the River Ran Wild! is the story of a culture and a community that has undergone tremendous change since 1805, when the River People encountered Meriwether Lewis and William Clark as they traveled down the Columbia River on their way to the Pacific Ocean. To find the stories of that change, Aguilar draws on the journals and diaries of early White missionaries and settlers, such as Gabriel Franchere, Rev. Henry Perkins of Wascopum Mission, and A. B. Meacham. He found other stories in anthropological papers and historical studies that recorded the voices of people who practiced and remembered ceremonies and traditions that were lost or changed during the difficult years of removal to the Warm Springs Reservation in north-central Oregon. He heard yet others from tribal elders who have kept the history and stories of the River People in their memories.When the River Ran Wild! is the history of names and naming, of deep family connections, and of traditional customs. It is a descriptive catalogue of the plants the River People used for sustenance and medical purposes, and it is a detailed guide on how to pack out an elk and how to tan a hide. Aguilar retells the stories and myths of the river, the stories that "are now infrequent and told from books in the English language," the stories whose "body language, animal mimicry, and facial expressions are gone."Aguilar has written this book to help us know what the River People have lost on the Columbia River over the decades, but he also gives testimony to what has been conserved and enlivened by a people who love the land and who honor tradition and those who came before. He takes us, perhaps better than anyone else can, back to a time when the river ran wild.
  • The Raven Steals the Light

    Bill Reid, Robert Bringhurst, Claude Levi-Strauss

    Paperback (University of Washington Press, Feb. 1, 1996)
    This new edition of a collaboration between one of the finest living artists in North America and one of Canada’s finest poets includes a new introduction by the distinguished anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. Ten masterful, complex drawings by Bill Reid and ten tales demonstrate the richness and range of Haida mythology, from bawdy yet profound tales of the trickster Raven to poignant, imagistic narratives of love and its complications in a world where animals speak, dreams come real, and demigods, monsters, and men live side by side.
  • We Are Dancing for You: Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women's Coming-of-Age Ceremonies

    Cutcha Risling Baldy, Coll Thrush, Charlotte Cote

    Paperback (University of Washington Press, April 16, 2018)
    "I am here. You will never be alone. We are dancing for you." So begins Cutcha Risling Baldy's deeply personal account of the revitalization of the women's coming-of-age ceremony for the Hoopa Valley Tribe. At the end of the twentieth century, the tribe's Flower Dance had not been fully practiced for decades. The women of the tribe, recognizing the critical importance of the tradition, undertook its revitalization using the memories of elders and medicine women and details found in museum archives, anthropological records, and oral histories.Deeply rooted in Indigenous knowledge, Risling Baldy brings us the voices of people transformed by cultural revitalization, including the accounts of young women who have participated in the Flower Dance. Using a framework of Native feminisms, she locates this revival within a broad context of decolonizing praxis and considers how this renaissance of women's coming-of-age ceremonies confounds ethnographic depictions of Native women; challenges anthropological theories about menstruation, gender, and coming-of-age; and addresses gender inequality and gender violence within Native communities.
  • The Complete Jacob Lawrence: Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence AND Jacob Lawrence: Paintings, Drawings, and Murals

    Michelle DuBois, Peter T. Nesbett

    Hardcover (University of Washington Press, Sept. 1, 2000)
    This two-volume set, including Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence and Jacob Lawrence: Paintings, Drawings, and Murals (1935-1999), A Catalogue Raisonne, is the definitive publication on the work of artist Jacob Lawrence. The result of six years of research by the Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonne Project, led by Peter T. Nesbett and Michelle DuBois, the books identify, authenticate, and document over 900 paintings, drawings, and murals created by Jacob Lawrence between 1935 and 1999―over half of them discovered by the project. Over the Line includes essays by eight distinguished art historians considering the ways in which Lawrence’s art speaks so powerfully to different audiences and examining for the first time the breadth and depth of his output.Intimate in scale and bold in content, Lawrence’s candid portrayals of life in Harlem during the Depression and his epic multi-panel series painted in the late 1930s and early 1940s are the cornerstones of his aesthetic production. His paintings, drawings, and murals depict both critical moments in history and poignant struggles of everyday life. The subject matter ranges from unforgiving portrayals of racial injustice to compassionate scenes of family life, from unnerving images of nuclear annihilation to visual celebrations of such heroic individuals as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. His use of the series format and his attention to pressing social issues accord him a unique position in the history of American modernism.Born in 1917, Jacob Lawrence spent his childhood in New York City, attending classes at the Harlem Community Art Center and the American Artists School, and later working for the Federal Art Project. While still in his twenties Lawrence exhibited his paintings at major museums across the country, including the Phillips Collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he became the first African American artist to have work represented in the permanent collection. He lived, painted, and taught in New York City until 1971, when he joined the faculty of the University of Washington. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the National Medal of Arts.The contributors to Over the Line include Lizzetta LaFalle Collins; Patricia Hills, Boston University; Elizabeth Hutton-Turner, the Phillips Collection; Paul Karlstrom, West Coast Archives of American Art; Leslie King-Hammond, Maryland Institute; Richard Powell, Duke University; Lowery Stokes Sims, Studio Museum in Harlem; and Elizabeth Steele, the Phillips Collection.
  • Inland Fishes of Washington

    Richard S. Wydoski, Richard R. Whitney

    Hardcover (University of Washington Press, Oct. 1, 2003)
    This updated and greatly expanded edition of Inland Fishes of Washington describes all the known native and introduced fishes found in freshwater habitats of Washington State. The authors have created a valuable reference for anglers, biologists, teachers, students, and environmentalists in the Northwest.This wide-ranging study summarizes current knowledge on the appearance, distribution, growth, reproduction, food habits, and longevity of these fishes. The descriptions range from the ubiquitous salmon and steelhead to the Olympic mudminnow, a fish found only in the state of Washington. All are here placed within the context of the many mutually supporting species that together make up the ecological network that sustains them. An overview of Washington's topography and natural provinces clarifies the influence of geographical, historical, economic, and political forces on the existence of freshwater fishes today.The book provides instruction on the basic methods of fish identification, with keys and illustrations that bring together the traits and forms most useful in distinguishing species and subspecies.The authors are well known to fisheries professionals in the Pacific Northwest for their studies of fish, publications in professional fisheries journals, their university teaching, and first-hand experience in the field of fisheries management and research.
  • Haa Shuká, Our Ancestors: Tlingit Oral Narratives

    Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Richard Dauenhauer

    Paperback (University of Washington Press, July 1, 1987)
    These gripping and powerful prose narratives relate monumental events in the lives of the forebears of Tlingit clans, from the prehistoric migration to the coast of Southeast Alaska to the first contact with Europeans. The stories were recorded from the 1960s to the present by twelve tradition bearers who where passing down for future generations the accounts of haa shuka, which means "our ancestors." Their narratives tell of the origin of social and spiritual concepts and explain the complex relationships among members of a given clan to their relatives in other clans, to spirits of the land where the vents took place, to the spirits of departed ancestors, and to the spirits of various animals, including killer whale and bear.The focus here is on the stories and story tellers themselves, who lived amazingly different lives, reflecting in a small way the complexity of Tlingit life in the twentieth century, a period characterized by unprecedented political, economic, and social change. The stories were told in Tlingit and then transcribed from the tape recorded versions. The editors have attempted to write these stories the way they were told, and to then translate them into English keeping the unique Tlingit oral style.This book will be of interest to the general reader of Native American literature and comparative literature, as well as to folklorists, linguists, and anthropologists. Of special interest to linguist will be the new texts (transcribed in three different Tlingit dialects) containing many hitherto unattested grammatical forms.
  • Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East

    Ralph S. Hattox

    Paperback (University of Washington Press, Oct. 1, 1985)
    Drawing on the accounts of early European travelers, original Arabic sources on jurisprudence and etiquette, and treatises on coffee from the period, the author recounts the colorful early history of the spread of coffee and the influence of coffeehouses in the medieval Near East. Detailed descriptions of the design, atmosphere, management, and patrons of early coffeehouses make fascinating reading for anyone interested in the history of coffee and the unique institution of the coffeehouse in urban Muslim society
  • I Will Fight No More Forever: Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War

    Merrill D. Beal

    Paperback (University of Washington Press, June 28, 2000)
    Unpublished letters and diaries by eyewitnesses, interviews with decedents, an intimate knowledge of the country enrich this narrative of the heroic Nez Perce Indian War waged in 1877 against relocation.The result is a well documented chronicle offering new perspective on prewar Indian-white relations, United States government pressures and nontreaty rebellions, the five battles, subjection and surrender, and on the character of the leaders on both sides."From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever," Chief Joseph said in surrender. But as a guardian and protector of his people he at last succeeded in bringing back the remaining members of his tribe to their beloved valley.Calling Professor Beal's book, "definitive, but not final," Herman J. Deutsch, professor emeritus of American history at Washington State University, writes in the foreword: "Joseph and his band remain an example and inspiration to those who today are seeking recognition as human beings, equal in the sight of God and therefore entitled to like status among men. Those who recognize that such aspirations must not for long remain unfulfilled can derive from Nez Perce history examples of the consequences of policies conceived in ignorance and colored with disdain of the culture and way of life of minority peoples. ...A world surfeited with deceptive success stories can ill afford to forget a people and their leader who attained their true moral stature as they were facing their doom."