Review: California Against the Sea, by Rosanna Xia (Mongolia 2009-11)

Evelyn la Torre (Peru, 1964-66) reviews Rosanna Xia’s California Against the Sea. This non-fiction book is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Title: California Against the Sea

Author: Rosanna Xia

Published: September 26, 2023 (Heyday Books)

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Review by Evelyn La Torre (Peru, 1964-66)

Ocean waves are devouring California’s coastal cliffs and beaches quicker than previously predicted, with an increasing speed and force that many don’t realize. Rich and poor land- and homeowners from Imperial Beach to Marin City are adversely affected.

In California Against the Sea, Rosanna Xia, an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times and returned Peace Corps volunteer (Mongolia, 2009-11), describes precisely where the increasingly high waves and water levels along the coast are causing damage, amounting to more than that caused by fires and earthquakes in the state. As a California resident, this book spurred me to more actively support environmental causes.

The author illustrates the numerous efforts employed in the past and present to ward off coastal erosion in California’s coves, cities, and along Highway 1. She compares the ways native tribes lived in harmony with nature to modern society’s attempts – building walls – that fail to control the natural forces.

Xia cautions that remedial plans need to be well thought out, proactive, and phased in, because actions in one area affect what happens in another coastal area. For example, we learn that the dredging in San Francisco Bay, in part, causes erosion of Pacifica’s beaches; that paving of the Pacific Coast Highway has caused Malibu’s beach to lose sand.

She underscores that the solutions that work tend to be those in harmony with nature, exemplified by various tribal nations, rather than those that fight against the natural movement of water.

Reestablishing large sand dunes by replacing foreign plants with native vegetation has been successful in Marina, north of Monterey; a 10-foot man-made berm keeps water from flooding Alviso; transferring deeds to the Kashia Coastal Reserve for the native tribe to manage in Sonoma County has supported its renewal.

The book ends with a hopeful, though urgent, message, to undertake prudent actions before it is too late.

Reviewer Evelyn LaTorre’s first published book, Between Inca Walls, about falling in love while serving in the Peace Corps, was awarded the 2021 Peace Corps Experience prize. It has also won a first place Hearten Award from Chanticleer International Book Awards and numerous five-star ratings by Readers Favorite and others. Her second memoir, Love in Any Language, has garnered similar praise and has numerous 5-star reviews on Amazon. Evelyn is often a featured podcast guest, lecturer, and guest blogger, and her work has appeared in many magazines and journals, including the California Writers Club Literary Review, WorldView Magazine, The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, the Tri-City Voice, Dispatches, Conscious Connection and Clever Magazine.