The Houston duo continued their probe of multicultural themes with back-to-back books, Beyond Manzanar and Other Views of Asian-American Womanhood and One Can Think About Life After the Fish Is in the Canoe and Other Coastal Stories (1985), and Barrio, an eight-part miniseries for NBC. On their own, the Houstons function as solo writers and lecturers. Jeanne fills her days with writing articles for Mother Jones, California, West, California Living, Reader's Digest, and the New England Review and by speaking at West Coast, Hawaiian, and Asian campuses. James has produced a composition text, biography, essays, novels, and stories in Playboy, Michigan Quarterly Review, Yardbird Reader, Unknown California, Bennington Review, Honolulu, Manoa, Rolling Stone, and Mother Jones, as well as articles for the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. His best-received nonfiction, Californians: Searching for the Golden State (1982), earned a Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award.
Jeanne's contribution to the reclamation of the Asian-American past has netted her recognition from the National Women's Political Caucus. In 1984, after meriting Warner Communications' Wonder Woman award for "the pursuit of truth and positive social change," she and James, on a tour of Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Malaysia, and Indonesia, visited refugee camps. More recent honors include the East-West Center award from the 1989 Hawaii International Film Festival and a U.S.-Japan Cultural Exchange fellowship in 1991, during which the Houstons spent six months in Japan. Although close enough to visit Hiroshima, Jeanne chose not to view the place where members of the Wakatsuki family were incinerated by an atomic bomb.
