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Author's Message
Lauren Kessler
If I were the kind of person who slapped bumper stickers on her car, I'd put this one dead center: I adoregon. Because I do — and have ever since I drove a rented van with all my belongings up a gravel road near Little Fall Creek in the mid-1970s. The air was sweet; the trees were huge; the people were smiling. It was love at first sight.
And the longer I live here, the more I find to love ... like OREGON READS. What an amazing event — a high-profile, statewide literary happening! A state that recognizes and celebrates the power of books — the power of stories — in our lives and in the life and history of Oregon. More than ever, I am proud to live here and to have made my life as a writer here.
I am delighted — and deeply honored — to be part of the Everybody Reads/Oregon Reads literary celebration. I am even more delighted that so many Oregonians will get to meet the Yasui family, the main characters in Stubborn Twig. They are an extraordinary family whose experiences illustrate, in the most urgent, dramatic and compelling way, both the promise and the peril of America. The story of this family is a window on the immigrant experience in America, an experience all of us share somewhere in the twisted branches of our family trees.
Over the course of researching and writing this book, the Yasuis opened their lives to me not just as subjects talking to a writer but as the warm, caring and compassionate people they are. Through them I learned not only a vivid historical lesson but other lessons as well, lessons about personal integrity and strength of character, about believing in and following one's own convictions and, perhaps most important, about what it truly means to be a family. Getting to know this family was one of the most enriching experiences in my life. I am so glad I get to share that with so many of you.
Lauren Kessler
October 2008