Best of Insight: Unsolved Mystery of the Yuba County Five | Book ‘The Hungry Season’ | Memoir ‘Dancing the Afrofuture’

Insight With Vicki Gonzalez

Best of 2024: The 1978 unsolved disappearance of the Yuba County Five. Plus, “The Hungry Season” details a Hmong rice farmer in the Central Valley. Finally, “Dancing the Afrofuture,” a memoir studying hip hop culture.

Unsolved Mystery of the Yuba County Five

In 1978, five Yuba County men - Bill Sterling, Jack Huett, Ted Weiher, Jack Madruga, and Gary Mathias - went to see a basketball game in Chico, and were never seen alive again. Their disappearance remains a cold case to this day. The mystery is captured in a book, Things Aren’t Right: The Disappearance of the Yuba County Five by author Tony Wright. He joined Insight about how he captured details about the disappearance and its investigation for the first time.

Book ‘The Hungry Season’

Following the end of the Vietnam War, thousands of Hmong refugees resettled in the United States - many making their way to California’s Central Valley. Fresno and Sacramento are home to the largest Hmong populations in the United States, only behind Minneapolis. For many refugees farming provided nourishment, community, and reconnecting with family ancestry. A journalist spent seven years in rice fields, intimately learning the story of one Hmong woman - and how growing her ancestor’s rice in the San Joaquin Valley led to newfound power. That intimate relationship, along with years of research, transformed into a literary portrait. Lisa M. Hamilton is a journalist and author of The Hungry Season: A Journey of War, Love, and Survival.

Memoir ‘Dancing the Afrofuture’

A UC Davis emerita professor’s new memoir chronicles her journey from being a dancer-activist in the Bay Area, to an academic scholar studying hip-hop culture. Dr. Halifu Osumare is the author of Dancing the Afrofuture: Hula, Hip-Hop and the Dunham Legacy and joined Insight to talk about how dance has been a survival mechanism for people of African descent to preserve culture and values.