Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Madrona: A Micro-Geography Of The 1960s And 1970s, Brett B. Bodemer

Library Scholarship

Drawing on personal memory, detailed mapping, and archival research, this memoir explores the lived experience of growing up in Seattle’s Madrona neighborhood in the 1960s and early 1970s. A neighborhood historically characterized as both integrated and segregated, this book grapples directly with the truth of both statements. The author’s childhood was spent on a street where neighbors across the street were nearly all White, while neighbors astride the alley behind were nearly all Black. The lines of friendship and community interaction, however, were not so neatly defined, and changed markedly over time.

To avoid a mere rehearsal of well-entrenched memories, …

Back And There (Complete Version), Brett B. Bodemer

Library Scholarship

These brief vignettes combining cross-cultural reflection and memoir were written shortly after returning from a year in Vietnam. They are assembled under a title which may strike the reader as an odd reversal of the more expected title - There and Back - but anyone who reads on will rapidly discover that although I was Back I was clearly still There. An excerpted version appeared in Moebius in 2010, but the text presented here is complete and unabridged.