Buenos Dias! Its Mexican Book Club!

Recently while on vacation in Mexico, I had the pleasure of visiting my cousin’s book club.  My cousin spends about two thirds of her time living in a wonderful city called San Miguel de Allende in the central part of the country.  The city is perched on a mountainside in the Sierra Madres about two hours northwest of Mexico City.  My cousin is well aware of my book addiction and knew that I’d love to see what her book group was like so she was kind enough to invite me to participate in their monthly meeting. 

For Americans, San Miguel has become a hotspot for new or early retirees to gather and spend the cold months.  Different from places like Florida and more traditional snowbird destinations, San Miguel’s rough terrain and edgy nature draws able bodied interesting people who generally spent their careers in creative pursuits.  There is a large artist community and after being there for a week, I can liken San Miguel to a continuing ed day camp that runs year round.  Every day there are workshops, classes, excursions, and seminars on everything under the sun.  It’s a great place to hang out. 

Needless to say, Book Club was a treat.  We met in the beautiful home of one of the members.  We spent the first part of the meeting deciding what the group would read for the following year.  These ladies are organized!  They even had ballots!  I brought mine home so that I could suggest some of their picks to my bookgroup.  San Miguel hosts a writer’s conference in March and many of the members are involved in its organization.  The group chose several books by the authors slated to speak at the conference.  This conference is big time.  This year Luis Urrea (The Hummingbird’s Daughter, see my previous review) is the keynote.  For the rest of the afternoon we enjoyed lively discussion about August’s book pick The Buddha in the Attic.  As the meeting ended, I felt lucky to have spent a lovely afternoon with such a wonderful smart group of women.  

Here is a link to this year’s conference:  http://sanmiguelwritersconferenceblog.org/

The Buddha in the Attic
By Julie Otsuka

 The Buddha in the Attic is a story about Japanese picture brides coming to California in the early 1900’s and settling into western lives with men that they did not know.  Often these women spent long hours of backbreaking labor working on the produce farms until they could afford small businesses and farms of their own.  The book follows them through their assimilation to American culture, to the brink of World War II when they were all rounded up and sent to the Japanese Internment Camps. 

A few weeks previous to my trip, my cousin sent me the book title so that I could be prepared for my visit.  It was an easy, though not particularly happy read; about 120 pages.  The author used a listing technique to tell the Japanese experience and point of view.  Like this:  “some of us worked the fields, some of us cleaned laundry, some of us cooked in restaurants…” and on and on.  While you definitely got a sense of the breadth of experience for these women, it made for tiresome reading.  I find it easier to relate to a narrative.  The story is such a poignant one and one that Californians struggle with in particular.  Some of the book club members were from the San Francisco area and had memories of the time.  Others like me knew about the camps and the stories, but didn’t have an appreciation for how quickly and absolutely the people had to leave. 

While the story is a heartbreaking one, I came away feeling like, until the part about Internment Camps, the story could be any immigrant population’s story.  And, as a nation, the US is not too nice to our immigrants. We certainly don’t open our doors to them and often shun them even though nearly everyone of us is the product of immigrant ancestry.  The Japanese story is even more egregious because of the camps and the inane thought that these gentle people could have anything to do with the Japanese Army half a world away. 

I predict that this book will make the lists of book clubs everywhere.  It’s a quick read and will provoke lots of discussion. Generally it was met with positive review from the group.  Ms. Otsuka used creative techniques for telling the story from many points of view, and people seemed to like it.  I just wish she had told it without the gimmicks.  Read a few chapters, skip to the end and you’ll get the idea. A story this important just doesn’t need them.