"Wehrey''s well-composed book makes accessible a region whose history has hitherto been fragmented in public consciousness and likely never considered in its own right. What is more, Wehrey does so with the voices of local, primarily working-class people, empowering them to construct and invent the meaning of their communities'' pasts."

--Oral History Review

 

"Wehrey''s evocative, masterfully choreographed collection casts freshlight on continuing debates over western water policy and wartime racism by placing us in the minds and hearts of a spectrum of valley inhabitants. Many authors have chronicled the internment of Japanese Americans and the draining of the Owens Valley, but more than any scholar, Wehrey reveals the intimate memories and earth bound complexities of these events."

--Michael Steiner, Professor of American Studies, California State University, Fullerton

"Wehrey expertly weaves a fascinating portrait of Manzanar by bringing to life the voices of people who had lived in "this brown land." Through the tales of fourteen different narrators, we can taste the apples, feel and smell the soda ash, hear the water, and see the peaks of the Sierra Nevada. Required reading for anyone seeking to understand Manzanar and its pivotal role in California water rights and the detention of Japanese Americans during World War II."

--Naomi Hirahara, author of Summer of the Big Bachi

 

"With a unique fusion of personal familiarity with Owens Valley, professional expertise in oral history and graceful writing, Jane Wehrey has created an incomparable chronicle of this "bold and starkly beautiful land." The complex, multi-layered regional and national pasts, narrated by fourteen interviewees, have been deftly interwoven to locate the "long, brown" valley far beyond Eastern California in significance."

--Diana Meyers Bahr, author of Viola Martinez, California Paiute: Living in Two Worlds

 

"These first-hand, eye-witness accounts are invaluable historical treasures. They concern many years and places not covered very well in other histories of Owens Valley. And they give us not just historical events, but the fascinating life and times that are long gone. Voices From This Long Brown Land is a unique contribution to the saga of Eastern California."

--Remi Nadeau, author of Ghost Towns & Mining Camps of California, The Water Seekers, and The Silver Seekers.