"Take This Man" by Brando Skyhorse (2014)

The very first thing you need to know about this book is that the author is not an Indian, as his name would suggest. Neither is he Mexican, as his mother is. He is not really Filipino either, which is a shame because his real dad was. If you can wrap your mind around that then you are off to a good start in a very unique memoir that takes place in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles in the 1970’s and 80’s.

The author takes you on a journey through the dysfunctional world created by his Grandmother, who is Mexican; and his mother, a woman who has fashioned herself into an American-Indian. The problem is that she really believes this to be so. She has a child with a man from the Philippines. And then rejects him with the threat of having him deported because he is here illegally. And this is just the beginning.

Brando is raised within a whirlwind of new men his mother meets- 6 in all over the years- and each one becomes a possible father to the boy, only to fade away under the strain of dealing with his mother and grandmother. Or else they just leave on their own. These experiences with repeated hope and disappointment inform the man that Brando becomes.

This book will actually keep you engrossed, if only because you have never read a memoir like this before. There is no blatant physical or sexual abuse; just a succession of poor decisions by every adult in Brando’s young life. He is constantly on the verge of having the father he wants and needs so desperately, but never finds in the men his mother chooses.

I actually identified with the yo-yo type of existence the author lived due to my own mother’s long and severe illness. It’s hard to grow up when you are told one of your parents will be dead soon. And even harder when they don’t die, leaving you to experience the same pain over and over, each time loathing yourself for wishing it would finally happen and put an end to the anxiety. Of course this leaves you scarred and feeling guilty. And those feelings then claim whole parts of your life until you can find a way to deal with it. I’m one of the lucky ones; some never do.

After failed relationships and a move from Los Angeles to New York, the author; with the aid of time and distance; is able to gain some clarity on just what the hell happened to him while growing up. It took a long time, and was not an easy path, and in many ways the author still struggles to see what the meaning of it all has been.

Later in life he finds the family of his real father, where he is accepted by his half-brothers and sisters as an equal; a true sibling. After a journey of a lifetime the author finally gets his family and learns that love takes many different forms, and families come in many shapes and sizes. What counts most is the love.

This is a very different kind of memoir; it’s more of a search by the author to find out who he really is. And once he figures that out he still needs to assess the damage which has already been done. As the author’s mother used to say, “Well, at least it’s never boring.”

"Ishi - The Last Yahi" (1992)

Imagine being the last living person of your nationality, religion, or even just family. Now imagine having to hide in order to avoid being hunted down as a trophy. If you can possibly imagine these two scenarios successfully, then; and only then; will you fully understand the story of “Ishi – The Last Yahi”, which tells the story of an Indian named Ishi, who had fled into the foothills of California after the massacres of his fellow tribesmen in the 1860’s and 70’s.

With only a handful of warriors, their squaws, and scant supplies, the group chose to live in hiding rather than to surrender their age old customs for the white man’s world. For forty years, just as the Israelites had spent 40 years in the wilderness, Ishi and his fellow tribesmen were forced to survive in the foothills of California. Using all of their native skills they established a community, with leaders to make decisions and mete out justice, and hunters who provided the wild game on which they existed. They became a mythological presence; everyone knew they were out there; but no one had actually seen them.

And then, one day in 1911, Ishi, the last of the Yahi tribe, emerged from the wilderness half dead from starvation, to enter the white man’s world. After an initial stay in prison; there was simply no other way proposed to deal with him at the time; he was persuaded by anthropologist Alfred Kroeber to spend the last 4 years of his extraordinary life at the Museum of Anthropology in San Francisco, where he regaled visitors with his history of the Yahi people. He also told of his 40 years in exile, explaining how the tribe lived, and died in the wilderness, cut off from the life, and traditions, they had always known.

Fascinating in its detail; and with the use of photographs, some actual silent film footage, and even a rare voice recording of Yahi himself; this documentary film will make the viewer think long and hard about the foundation upon which America was built. “From sea to shining sea” takes on a whole new significance when confronted with the price paid by the people who were essentially victims of our policy of Manifest Destiny.