Fluid Arguments: Five Centuries of Western Water Conflict by Char Miller (review)

family. Again, the exclusion of an Isseimaterial object ? a Japanese-stylebathhouse ? from the official landmark underlines a common theme of racial exclusion. Dubrow makes bril liantuse of these "places" not simply to illumi nate the Issei position vis-?-vis the dominant public history but also to advocate for amore inclusive narrative thatwould testify to the multiethnic heritage of Selleck and theNeely Mansion aswell as ofAmerica itself. Sento at Sixth andMain extends thediscus sion of Japanese American marginality to the postwar years. Countering the accepted notion of successfulNisei assimilation,Graves details in the lastchapter the circumstances under which theHoliday Bowl came into being during the 1950s as amecca forLos Angeles Nisei bowlers who had encountered the racially exclusionary policies of theAmerican Bowling Congress. Just as other featured landmarks ? such as a com munity hall, a Japanese school, and a Buddhist temple ? had startedout as cultural hearths in theprewar years, so thebowling center emerged as a refuge for the American-born generation. Moreover, this landmark isunder the threatof demolition now "forredevelopment of the siteas a strip mall" (p. 195),despite community oppo sition.Not only does this suggest the similarity of racial experiences among the immigrantand second generations, but itcorresponds with the underlyingmessage of thisbook: "Beforemany more aspects of thisheritage are lost, itis impor tant todocument the surviving landmarks,plan for theirprotection, and develop programs of public interpretation"(p. 3). Preservation, there fore,needs to go hand inhand with interpreta tion or reinterpretation. Sento at SixthandMain does not include any landmarkspertaining to the wartime internment of JapaneseAmericans. This appears to reflecta conscious decision of theauthors,who argue that an excessive focus on that subject has led toun evenness inpreservation efforts and biases in what isremembered. Thus, theyargue that"sustained efforts areneeded toprotect the full rangeofplaces that are significant in JapaneseAmerican heri tage" (p. 5; italicsadded). The inclusion ofmun dane places such as a sento (public bath) and a midwifery in lieu of camp-related objects poignantly shows the authors' attempt to learn "the scope, complexity,and characterof the world the Nikkei hadmade" beyond the internment. With its intriguing images and well-crafted stories,Sento at SixthandMain isrecommended forevery levelof readers,but a fullappreciation of its innovativemethodology and scholarship will probably require a basic understanding of JapaneseAmerican historiography. Fluid Arguments: Five Centuries of Western Water Conflict EditedbyCharMiller University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2001. Maps, tables, notes, bibliography, index. 384 pages. $45.00 cloth. Reviewed byWilliam L. Lang Portland State University,Portland, Oregon Nothing in the history of the Ameri- ment. The sixteenarticles inFluidArgumentsun can West isas contentious or as overflow- derscore how criticalwater policy and disputes ing with litigiousness aswater use and develop- over theuse ofwater have been in thehistory of 274 OHQ vol. 104, no. 2 the West, fromwater rights in the seventeenth and eighteenth-centurySpanish colonies toon going fights over water use between urban resi dents and agriculturaliststhat make today'shead lines.The book leads off with a helpful and rang ing introduction by the editor,Char Miller, and thendivides thetopic intofourchronological sec tionsthataddressNew Spain's lands inthe Ameri can Southwest, Indianwater rights,agricultural water use in thenineteenth and twentiethcentu ries, and the era of dam-building. As inmost collections of this sort, the articles are uneven in quality. Some aremore descriptive than analyti cal, but each contributes to a better understand ingof the roleofwater in western history. Studies by JesusF. de laTeja, ShellyDudley, and Sandra K.Mathews-Lamb explicate therole early irrigationefforts played inSpanish coloni zation effortsin the Southwest, with emphasis on irrigationas a foundation forsuccessful colo nies. Bonnie Lynn-Sherow,Donald Pisani, Alan Newell, and Daniel McCool treat the often neglected role thatirrigation andwater rights have played inNative American history and how In dian water rights affect water use, an important subject in the largerhistoryofwater in the West. Irrigation on reservation land, as Pisani points out, consistently favoredwhite agricultural in terests over Native interests and became "per haps thebiggest obstacle to Indian agriculture" (p. 87). Water also provided Indian tribes with an unexpected lever, Newell argues, intheSupreme Court's establishment of the so-calledWinters Doctrine in1908, which "insertedthe United States intostate water proceedings" because thefederal government acted as trusteeforthetribes (p. 96 ). McCool's history of the Winters Doctrine as...