The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Spring 1991, Volume 37, Number 2
Richard W. Crawford, Editor
Book Notes
Reviewed by Raymond Starr, San Diego State University
Five Views: An Ethnic Sites Survey for California.
Sacramento: California State Department of Parks and Recreation, Office of Historic Preservation, 1988. Photographs. Bibliographies. 265 pages. $11.95 paperbound.
Reviewed by Michael Raul Ornelas, Professor of Chicano Studies at San Diego Mesa College.
Five Views is a survey of ethnic historic sites in California designed to highlight often overlooked historic resources. The book is divided into sections on American Indians, African Americans, Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican Americans in California. Each section features a very good introductory essay on the pertinent group, descriptions of many sites, as list of all sites surveyed, and a bibliography. Some of the sites are well known (Sutter’s Fort, for example); others not well known at all. Yet others are given other names or are viewed in a manner different than the white majority might see them; an example would be Quechla, the San Luis Rey River in San Diego County. A careful examination of the material in this book will enhance anyone’s knowledge of the history on non-whites in California, and will also increase the reader’s sensitivity to things important to those outside the dominant Anglo-American culture. Unfortunately, the absence of an index greatly reduces the usefulness of Five Views.
