 |
|
|
|
|
|
Book Reviews
|
|
|
|
An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story
of Shrimpers, Politicos Polluters and the fight for Seadrift
by Diane Wilson
(391 pages, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, www.chelseagreen.com)
|
|
|
|
I had finished my bedtime reading and reached across the pillow to place this book on my nightstand. There was a book already occupying the table, and I tossed this one atop it. It was only later that I realized the book beneath was Edward Abbey’s classic THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG — and then further realized, Hayduke does live, and her name is Diane Wilson. She doesn’t go after the heavy targets favored by the original Monkey Wrench Gang — dams and bulldozers — preferring a more Gandhian approach; and she won’t damage any personal property, unless it’s her own. How such an unlikely advocate for the health and well being of planet emerged from a small, down-on-its-luck fishing village on the gulf coast of Texas is recounted in her autobiography, AN UNREASONABLE WOMAN: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters and the fight for Seadrift. A fourth-generation shrimper, Diane grew up the fifth of six children on the Gulf waters, captivated by both its fecundity and power. Of her early childhood she writes,
After my sister Janie was born and for the next three years, I quit crying and I quit talking too. In my silent world, nothing existed but the water and the marsh and someplace between the southeasterly wind as it crossed our summer porch. Then when I was five and lying alongside my daddy’s boat in the harbor, I saw the Water Lady resting. She was sitting on the shore, and her dress trailed on the edges of the mud flat and her gray hair curled around her bare feet. And when I came to her, she turned to me and her sigh was no louder than the white birds feeding on fish.
While this early experience borders on the mystical, and no doubt informs her modus operandi, Wilson’s call to action on behalf of the natural environment seems to arise more from a sturdier, pragmatic basis. The small bay of Port Lavaca is suffering: the shrimp catch isn’t what it once was; dolphins are dying mysteriously, and Wilson catches a newspaper story listing her county as the most polluted in terms of toxic releases. Her attempts to connect-the-dots opens a “can of worms” as she says, and pits her against the human forces of greed, corruption, and ignorance that only someone bold enough to captain a tiny shrimp boat through a Gulf storm could handle.
Written with dramatic flair, this story traces her evolution as an activist and visionary. From her nervous apprehension at the first public meeting through her baptism of fire into the world of backroom deals and boardroom chicanery, Wilson provides an insider’s view of one woman’s fight against a giant petrochemical corporation (Formosa Plastics of Taiwan) and their plans to open the largest PVC factory in the world, without so much as obtaining an Environmental Impact Report. It is a “one woman’s fight” largely because, in a county hell-bent on receiving “economic development,” few people are willing to challenge the promise of jobs — even as Wilson uncovers the fact that health risks from those jobs may well outweigh their short-term benefits.
The book provides a first-hand account of activism with no holds barred: there is sabotage, surveillance, and betrayal. And Wilson does not shy away from writing of the psychological effects that burden her: the depression she can only wrestle with alone on her boat as she drifts beyond the sight of land. In the end, rather than compromise, her emotions spur her to direct action, including hunger strikes and the decision to sink her own boat in protest against the destruction of the bay.
She writes with same languorous drawl with which she speaks, a Gulf patois that is as heavy as the humid air, and redolent with the spicy tang of strong coffee, salt air and diesel exhaust. The cast of colorful characters favor strong-willed women like her fish-house cohort Donna Sue, her outlaw shrimper brother Sanchez, and her inscrutable environmental attorney, Jim Blackburn. The fishermen, whose lives and works she portrays in gritty detail, are at best reluctant allies, their lives having already been made difficult by quotas, game wardens, and what she attributes to their own “stubbornness.”
Not everyone could have done what Diane Wilson did — attend public hearings with her babies in tow, travel long distances to the state capitol to research and lobby, earn a living by mending shrimping net — seemingly nourished solely by an unceasing pot of strong black coffee and an insatiable desire for justice. In the end, however, the victories she achieves (on paper) may not be as important as the message of personal empowerment she shares. Since her battles against Formosa Plastics, Wilson has gone on to co-found the activist group Code Pink for Women, as well as being arrested and jailed for numerous high-visibility protest actions.
Her story may not provide a literal “how to” manual for citizen action, but it certainly answers the question, “Why?”
David Weisman (davidweisman@charter.net) is a media activist living in Morro Bay. He created both short and long documentary videos with Diane Wilson that can be viewed on the internet at: http://www.texaslegacy.org/bb/narrators/wilsondiane.html
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
