Cultural Contact and Linguistic Relativity among the Indians of Northwestern California by Sean O'Neill

Abstract

policy to latereffortsto secureminority rights in Canada. While Bangarth contributes significantly to our understanding of thesemovements in a comparative context, her treatment of the ACLU issometimes puzzling. Based on archival research, Bangarth demonstrates sharp divi sions over the issue (not unlike Judy Kutulas's The American Civil Liberties Union and the Making of Modern Liberalism, University of North Carolina Press, 2006). This detailed discussion makes clear that theorganization s national board quickly backed away from opposition toExecutive Order (EO) 9066 and refused to sponsor severalof the testcases chal lengingwartime restrictions.Yet, her framing of theACLU as theprinciple group opposing the policy of removal and incarceration, and references to itsopposition "from the begin ning," imply a stronger, more consistent stance (p. 52).During her discussion of the responses of theAmerican peace churches, forexample, Bangarth claims that "they were relatively quiet" in thewake of EO 9066 because "the ACLU, as a long-established and well-known civil liberties group, was leading the charge in thepolitical sphere" (p. 86). The confusing message about theACLU's role also extends to Bangarth's discussion of the court cases. Early on, she notes that theACLU "national board did not participate (in the test cases) until 1944, inEx Parte Endo" (p. 59). Later, shewrites aHirabayashi, Korematsu, Endo, and Yasui became testcases,with theACLU participating only inHirabayashi and Korematsu (p. 138). Clearer, more consistent distinction between the foot-dragging national ACLU and its West Coast affiliates,whose leaders were far less conflicted,would be helpful. Given thefocus on Canada sCCJC, an orga nization formed specifically to respond to the removal order,one wonders why Bangarth did not focusmore on theCommittee onNational Security and Fair Play. Like theCCJC ? but unlike theACLU, an organization thathad a much broader focus and was quite conflicted on the removal and incarceration issue ? the California based Fair Play Committee dedicated itselfto theNikkei issue, testifying at Congressional hearings, orchestrating a public relations campaign, helping with resettlement issues, lobbying officials, and coordinating with allied groups.Despite itsleadership on the issueand theparallels between itand theCCJC, Bangarth mentions theFair Play Committee a scant threetimes. Amore detailed examination of theCommittee might also help illuminate the extent towhich the civil liberties language ofAmerican dissenterswas due to theACLU's influence. Despite these issues,Bangarth's study makes several important contributions. Her compara tivetreatmentofNorth American Nikkei poli cieswill be valuable to students of both Cana dian and American history. She is compelling inher argument that the differentdiscourses of rightsused by opponents ofNikkei policy in the two countrieswas significantand had a lasting impact on subsequent minority rights movements, especially in Canada. Ellen M. Eisenberg Salem, Oregon CULTURAL CONTACTAND LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY AMONG THE INDIANS OF NORTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA bySeanO'Neill University ofOklahoma Press, Norman, 2008. Illustrations, maps, notes, index. 356 pages. $50.00 cloth. Sean O'Neill's book stands as proof that the American School of Anthropology, as estab lishedat thebeginning of the twentiethcentury by Franz Boas, stillhasmuch to tellus about the traditional culturesofPacificNorthwest Native peoples. Some suggestive observations on the lowerKlamath River region by Edward Sapir, one ofBoas's most influentialstudents,provide O'Neill with his startingpoint.Here are speak 140 OHQ vol. no, no. i ers of three main languages ? Karuk, Yurok, and Hupa ? that almost could not be more different;yet all three ethno-linguistic groups sharea regional culture souniform as to make it "difficult to say what elements intheircombined culture belong in origin to this tribe or that, so much at one are they in communal action, feeling,and thought" (Edward Sapir,Language, Harcourt-Brace, 1921, p. 214). It is fair to ask why these threelanguageshave not become far more alike than they indeed are, considering their speakers' long history of close contact, inter marriage, andmultilingualism. Inpursuit of an answer to thisquestion, O'Neill reviews recent research on the social dimensions of linguistic variation. These languagesmay have remained so different precisely because theirspeakershad become otherwise so alike, language offering one potent means among others for asserting a sense of local identity. Much ofO'Neill's book isan extended explo rationof the threelanguages' respectivesystems forclassifyingand structuringexperience,with an emphasis on cultural referencesembedded in those systems.The perspective informing the study ? the so-called "linguistic relativ ityhypothesis,"which holds that language has...