During his New Jersey childhood James Sie identified strongly with the heroine of Scott O’Dell’s 1960 children’s classic Island of the Blue Dolphins. “I sympathized with her sense of loneliness and isolation, her learning to fend for herself,” he explains. “I suppose any kid growing up could relate to the way she adjusts to the world, dealing with adversity. But being a first-generation Chinese American, I also felt somewhat different physically and isolated on an unconscious level. So the book’s message of self-reliance and the importance of resourcefulness was very appealing.”
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The real saga of the lone woman of San Nicolas is quite grim. In 1835 a Spanish schooner landed on the most distant of the Channel Islands off the California coast near Los Angeles. “The Franciscan monks on board found a tribe of Gabrielino Indians already decimated by fights with the Aleutians, who invaded the island in search of seal and otter skins,” Sie says. “They rounded up the survivors, mostly women and children, and herded them onto the ship.” For years the Franciscans in California had been trying to convert the native tribes by bringing them to the missions and putting them to work. “It was a refined form of slavery,” Sie avers, “and it gradually destroyed the cultural heritage of the Indians.” One of the captive Gabrielino women, believing her child had been left behind, jumped ship to return to the island. The schooner sailed on.
Back in January, Sie visited some of the Channel Islands to “soak in the atmosphere” in preparation for the production. San Nicolas, now a naval base, was off-limits, however. “I spent days watching the sea lions and listening to the wind. There were no trees on the islands, just rocks. And the expanse of blue water stretched to the horizon. I could sense the immense isolation she must have felt.”
