Friendship. Loyalty. Charity. These are the values of the Native Sons of the Golden West, the organization that, since 1875, has dedicated itself to the mission of preserving the physical vestiges of California history. Through the years, this group has helped to save, memorialize, and restore such treasures as Sutter's Fort, the Monterey Custom House, the Vallejo Petaluma Adobe, and many of the California missions. Starting out in San Francisco, the Native Sons now has 75 “parlors,” or chapters, statewide. With nearly 9,000 history-minded members, the Native Sons are known worldwide for their pageantry, pomp, and parades, as they keep alive the traditions of history.

You will love this personal story about the all-American sons and daughters of America. Excerpt: For the Native Son is a unique product, as distinctively and characteristically Californian as the gigantic redwood, the flower festival, the ferocious flea, the moving-picture film, the annual boxing and tennis champion, the golden poppy or the purple prune. There is only one other Californian product that can compare with him and that's the Native Daughter.

Although American Jews had already embraced the principle of fighting prejudice in all forms, western Jews often did not apply it to specific local issues involving Japanese Americans during World War II. In The First to Cry Down Injustice?, Eisenberg analyzes the range of Jewish responses--including silence, opposition to, and support for the policy--to the mass removal of Japanese Americans as the product of a distinctive western ethnic landscape.

An anthology of literary pieces and essays on surfing is complemented by classic and modern photographs and artwork and includes Mark Twain's nineteenth-century description in "Roughing It" and Susan Orlean's essay on girl surfers in Maui.