The pages beckon, though they tell a bittersweet tale.
    “We want to be proud to be Americans — not with aggressive jingoism but with sincerity, with respect for land, people and principle.”
    So begins Lauren Kessler’s preface to her book “Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family,” the volume of nonfiction that is the focal point of Hood River County Reads, which started this month.

“But it is sometimes difficult,” writes Kessler, “for our past is clotted with ugly episodes: invasions, land-grabbing, forced marches, slavery, lynchings, mass internment. We have blood on our hands, and it is little solace to most of us that other countries have done worse. We would like to believe that America is a beacon for freedom and equality, but in sometimes seems as if the evidence is less than overwhelming.”

“Stubborn Twig” is also one of three books in the “Oregon Reads” project. “Bat 6” by Virginia Euwer Wolff and “Apples to Oregon” by Deborah Hopkinson are the other two. Notably, “Bat 6” was the first “Hood River Reads” book, in 2006. The novel, like Kessler’s true story, dealt with prejudice and the evolution of relations between Japanese-Americans and people of European heritage in the Hood River Valley in the 1940s. Kessler’s intricately researched book presents the history of Japanese-American immigration, and integration, from the turn of the century onward. “Stubborn Twig” is a Hood River story, and it portrays goodness and greed, hard work and hatred, dignity and deceit. It centers upon, but moves well past and around, the story of the Masuo Yasui family and its successes, and terrible struggles, in the Hood River valley, culminating in the forced internment of Japanese Americans throughout the western United States after the start of World War II.

“Stubborn Twig” was published in 1993, and for this occasion has been updated with a foreword by Gov. Ted Kulongoski. He puts his perspective on it:

“In Oregon and America, equality of opportunity is an unfinished project. And we’ve certainly made mistakes along the way. But because of the courage and sacrifice of the Yasui family — and millions of others who came to this nation looking for a better life — we continue to move toward that ideal.” “Stubborn Twig” is a beautifully rendered telling of how far we’ve come toward — in the words of D. Martin Luther King — “living out the true meaning of our creed,” what it took to get us where we are today, and the moral challenge each of us faces to help complete the journey.”

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Free copies of the book are available at the library, and the Friends of the Library are planning a variety of events intended to help county residents understand the full context of the story. We encourage county residents to obtain a copy and read this story.

In the simple words of Hood River orchardist Shig Imai, “It’s just a very important part of our history here.”