title: Trees in Paradise: The Botanical Conquest of California
author:  Jared Farmer 
description: Knowledgeable, wise, and compelling, Farmer's book uncovers the subtle and surprising webs connecting the social, cultural, and natural worlds of California, and the planet. --<i>Kirkus Reviews</i> (starred review)<br /><br />An important addition to the California bookshelf. --<i>Los Angeles Times</i><br /><br />This brilliant new work of California history is a magnificent achievement. --William Deverell, Director, Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West
zlib_text: >
  
  
  >
  
  
  ALSO BY JULIE OTSUKA
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  When the Emperor Was Divine
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  WHITES
  
  We settled on the edges of their towns, when they would let us. And when they
  would not—Do not let sundown find you in this county, their signs sometimes
  said—we traveled on. We wandered from one labor camp to the next in their hot
  dusty valleys—the Sacramento, the Imperial, the San Joaquin—and side by side
  with our new husbands, we worked their land. We picked their strawberries in
  Watsonville. We picked their grapes in Fresno and Denair. We got down on our
  knees and dug up their potatoes with garden forks on Bacon Island in the
  Delta, where the earth was spongy and soft. On the Holland Tract we sorted
  their green beans. And when the harvest season was over we tied our blanket
  rolls onto our backs and, cloth bundles in hand, we waited for the next wagon
  to come, and we traveled on.
  
  THE FIRST WORD of their language we were taught was water. Shout it out, our
  husbands told us, the moment you beg