09.13.18

THE FAMILY WAY
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 09
PASADENA WEEKLY: To what extent is
“The Browns of California” a continuation of
stories told in your previous two books, “The
Union of Their Dreams: Power, Hope, and
Struggle in Cesar Chavez’s Farm Worker Movement”
and “The Crusades of Cesar Chavez”?
MIRIAM PAWEL: That’s a great question.
There is a connection, obviously; there’s a chapter
in which I deal with the relationship between Jerry
Brown and Cesar Chavez. Jerry Brown was very
important to the farm worker movement in a lot of
ways. I spent almost 10 years writing and reporting
and researching the farm worker movement in
one way or another, and Cesar Chavez and farm
labor in general, so I knew that fairly narrow piece
of history and the role that Jerry had played, and in
Jerry’s first term of office as governor, there was a
fair degree of overlap between the people and some
similarities in terms of ambiance. It in some ways
grew out of that, but obviously it is a much broader
look at California history.
How cooperative was Jerry Brown with this
project?
He was intrigued. He’s been very engaged in
tracing his own history, and very interested in his
ancestors. I came up with a lot of material, like I found the ship’s log that took his
great-grandfather to New York from Germany in 1849; that was of interest to everyone
in the family. Jerry’s sister Kathleen, who had her own political career; his older sister
Barbara in Sacramento, who was not involved in politics; and then a brother-in-law —
one of the four siblings died before I started this — I spoke with all of them and to a lot
of cousins too. They were all really helpful. The most helpful thing [Jerry] did was let
me go do what I want. He didn’t attempt to control in any way who I talked to or what
they said to me or anything like that. He was fine with it.
Did you conduct any research locally?
I did, I spent a lot of time at the Huntingon Library, actually. They have some primary
resources that were very valuable, but they also have an incredible collection
of every obscure book about any aspect of California history that you could want to
know. So that was a terrific resource for me.
Pat Brown’s mother, Ida Schuckman, makes a vivid impression. Reading
about her rugged upbringing in Colusa as the daughter of German immigrants
who were enterprising but never really mastered English, it seemed that’s
what developed her independent spirit and made her such a powerful role
model for her children and grandchildren.
I completely agree with that. I found her a very inspiring figure. … Everyone talked
about how important she was, and how strong. Coming relatively uneducated to San
Francisco at the turn of the century and becoming drawn to that whole literary, intellectual
world and being able to read books and go to talks and become self-educated
and instill that spirit in her descendants — I found that very impressive.
She merits her own book.
She would! I wish there were more about her; she didn’t do many interviews.
Pat’s bipartisanship in political decision-making and friendships is striking,
especially his lengthy bond with Republican Governor (and later Supreme
Court Chief Justice) Earl Warren. He also gathered stellar authors and legal
minds — Warren Christopher, Carey McWilliams, Wallace Stegner — to write
his position papers. Was he unusual in that regard?
I’d have to think about that. Pat was very aware of his own weakness — his lack
of education, having skipped going to college. So he wanted to surround himself with
the best and brightest and was very comfortable with that. He was part of the old boy
political network and glad-handing school too. There’s a quote from Norton Simon, a
Republican who went on to be a very rich person, that Pat’s “very, very real,” and “has a
sense of what he needs to complement his own strengths.”
You quote a letter Pat wrote to a cousin: “To think that I will have some
part, good or bad, in shaping [California’s] destiny is sobering. I hope that I
am not conceited because I know my limitations, but I do know also that with
firm principles a person does not have to fear in the slightest degree. I know
what is right and realize when I err.” Does that
sum up Pat’s ethos and legacy?
Yes. I think that’s true of the whole family too, in
a sense. Jerry’s very different from his father in a lot
of ways, but also very down to earth in a lot of ways.
They’re not falsely humble in any sense. They’re
certainly very proud of what Pat accomplished, and
wanted his name on the California Aqueduct. But he
saw himself as a piece of this greater whole. That’s
the other thing that Jerry, Kathleen, and that whole
family grew up with and absorbed: the importance
of public service. You can be of service to the public
in many ways, and politics is not everyone’s choice;
that idea that you should be giving back in some way,
that there’s a greater good and something more than
achieving great material success, that that’s not the
goal in life.
It’s fascinating to see cycles of history
repeat within the state and the family. Still, it
was surprising to read how Jerry reached out
during his “wilderness years” to Richard Nixon
for foreign policy mentoring — despite Pat’s
negative experiences with Nixon.
Miriam Pawel He’s very pragmatic. Nixon had at that time something
to offer and some expertise, and you take that
where you get it. I don’t think this family is one to hold grudges. They move on.
Does Jerry ever pass that along and mentor others?
That’s an interesting question. I think so, in the sense that there are people who
hope for him who are very, very devoted to him. Even in the current administration
there are people who have stayed all eight years, which is a long time. And there are
people who worked for him the first time who have come back … [Chuckles] It was
not the kind of normal mentoring or positive reinforcement that you would associate
with that term. But for that group of people, it was life changing. To be around him,
and to be in that environment in the mid-’70s, y’know, that shaped their lives. He’s still
very close to high school friends and some of the friends he grew up with. ‘Mentoring’
is maybe not exactly the right word [laughs], but I think he is willing in some ways to
share his accumulated political wisdom over the years.
I was surprised to read Allard Lowenstein’s description of Jerry as not only
“twice as frugal as Ronald Reagan, twice as Jesuit as Eugene McCarthy” but
also “twice as ruthless as Robert Kennedy.”
Lowenstein’s dead so there’s no way to ask what he meant by it, so I would use
“pragmatic.” If he decides something is not going to happen or not going to work, he’s
not going to go tilt at windmills.
Talk about the “Party of California,” which is one of the book’s most important
thematic threads.
It’s that feeling that there’s something special about California. This family really
believes in the idea of California exceptionalism, which not everyone does. It’s also
rooted in the different nature of political parties in California, which are really different
[from the East Coast]; people don’t identify in that rigid way. The cross-filing system
was part of that, and the open primary’s part of that in a way. Ultimately there is
this allegiance to California as a place, as an idea, as an innovator, as an opportunity,
that supersedes [political parties]. Jerry’s very much wanted to do things on a bipartisan
basis, not just in order to get votes but because there’s something important about
making a statement. His relationship with Arnold Schwarzenegger is a good example
of that. He’s very clear about crediting Schwarzenegger for starting a lot of the important
initiatives that he’s continued and executed.
Near the end, you quote a speech Jerry gave in Oslo in which he referenced
what drove the Vikings, the Christians, Greece and Rome. What, at this juncture,
would you say drives Jerry?
[Pauses] Two things. On the one hand, that relentless intellectual curiosity that he
has always had; and then, honestly, he’s also driven by these existential threats to the
planet, to existence as we know it, in the dual forms of climate change and nuclear proliferation.
I think he’s very driven to do whatever he can to try to stop those disasters
from getting any worse. n
Miriam Pawel discusses “The Browns of California” with David Ulin at Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd.,
at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 20; free admission. Info: (626) 449-5320. miriampawel.com, vromansbookstore.com
10 PASADENA WEEKLY | 09.13.18