Gordon Johnson voices modern American Indian experience

By: JESSE JAYNE RUTHERFORD - For the North County Times | Saturday, September 8, 2007 7:59 PM PDT ∞

In his new book, "Fast Cars and Frybread: Reports From the Rez" (Heyday Books, $12.95) author Gordon Johnson, a Cahuilla/Cupeno from the Pala Indian Reservation, gives voice to the local American Indian experience.

The book is a collection of essays first published in the Riverside Press-Enterprise between 1993 and 2000, and brings to life a personal and cultural modern history that is funny, touching, surprising, and above all, local. Johnson was an editor of The Californian, an edition of the North County Times, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Born in 1951, Johnson stayed on the reservation only sporadically during his childhood and didn't move there permanently until 1973, after attending UC Santa Cruz; he's lived on the reservation ever since. He is now working on his master's in fine arts at Antioch University in Los Angeles.

Essays like "Nights of Fast Cars, Fisticuffs, and Fiesta Fun" recall his wild times back in those days, at events like the Rincon Fiesta, where the sounds of Van Morrison blasted from the fiesta hall, softball players danced in their uniforms, peon (an ancient gambling game) fires burned, and fistfight combatants made up minutes after duking it out to drink beer together through fat lips and swollen jaws.

Later, Johnson muses over his uneasiness when he finds he has evolved into a pot-bellied ex-hippie, dishing out advice from a Barcalounger to eye-rolling teens that begins with, "Back when I was your age," and underscores how great things were in the Sixties.

These humorous observations and juxtapositions are a cornerstone of the book. Indeed, Johnson says, "I think a lot of people have stereotypes of Indians as being stoic and quiet, but they are people who love to laugh. Humor is a way of mitigating the world, of softening the blow. It's integral to any culture."

What blows can we laugh at, for example? In "Food Theory Backed by Bulk of Evidence," Johnson explains how the traditional lean, high-protein Southern California Indian diet ---- game, fresh greens, and weewish, a no-fat acorn pudding ---- was largely replaced by free government commodity food, which included lots of Spamlike canned meat and Velveeta-esque cheese in the days before the casino was built.

The "commods" weren't labeled with nutritional info, but you didn't need a nutritionist to tell you they were bad for you. Too many "rez burgers" ---- canned meat fried in commodity butter, topped with commodity cheese and doused with ketchup, then sandwiched between white bread ---- led one first to constipation and ultimately to a "commod bod." Years later, Johnson says he's still trying to lose weight, and more than one essay portrays him walking, running or hiking around Pala, hoping to stay healthy.

There's also a serious, poignant aspect to the essays, for while local American Indians living on reservations are among the few Southern Californians who can claim an intimate connection to place for more than one generation, the Cupa were expelled from their ancestral village at what is now known as Warner Springs as recently as 1902. That's hardly long enough to have disappeared from any Cupa's family history, and the last woman credited with being alive during the expulsion, Roscinda Nolasquez, passed away only about a decade ago.

Johnson describes the connection today's Cupenos have with the site as ritualistic; some people still sweat there and make journeys to its graveyard. "Place is still a strong circumstance in the human condition," he says. "People still attach themselves to where they live."

If you live around these parts or feel a connection to our area, "Fast Cars and Frybread" is a valuable record of the place we love. Funny and tragic, touching and thrilling, the essays record a unique local voice and oft-hidden perspective of the last 105 years.

Gordon Johnson will speak during California Indian Day at Palomar College on Sept. 26 and at Cal State San Marcos on Nov. 7. Johnson also has scheduled a reading for 7 p.m. Sept. 25 at the New Temecula Library. Check the Heyday Books Web site for details.

Jesse Jayne Rutherford is a freelance writer.

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