tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81406254036244664812024-03-18T14:02:23.087-07:00Terra TrevorWriting, Reading and LivingUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-58474773914333086272024-03-15T16:49:00.000-07:002024-03-17T08:00:44.934-07:00Writing, Reading and Living<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoQAuV327gprUMrXy9JVHedojxhI8vHL79u-I4u0dxzGEbEyPFXZVantJgzHpdMC2UTG2DBY9LdF7PM7pjXs47qS4kT3FSXuLU6q0uQQgix0ciMjgRf0WOGO32EXpqGZsFTB_FLvtLflhqTSHiDmuTkO4zVIuWfhezLrlLlEYA26qlqPhTWH7jtTmqha0a/s766/IMG_7934.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="766" data-original-width="766" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoQAuV327gprUMrXy9JVHedojxhI8vHL79u-I4u0dxzGEbEyPFXZVantJgzHpdMC2UTG2DBY9LdF7PM7pjXs47qS4kT3FSXuLU6q0uQQgix0ciMjgRf0WOGO32EXpqGZsFTB_FLvtLflhqTSHiDmuTkO4zVIuWfhezLrlLlEYA26qlqPhTWH7jtTmqha0a/s320/IMG_7934.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Welcome and thank you for visiting. I’m Terra Trevor, an essayist and the author of two memoirs, <i>We Who Walk the Seven Ways </i>(University of Nebraska Press), and <i>Pushing up the Sky</i> (Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network). I’m also a contributor to fifteen books in Native studies, Native literature, nonfiction and memoir. My essays have appeared in many publications and anthologies including: <i>Tending the Fire: Native Voices and Portraits </i>(University of New Mexico Press), <i>Children of the Dragonfly: Native American Voices on Child Custody and Education</i> (The University of Arizona Press), <i>The People Who Stayed: Southeastern Indian Writing After Removal</i> (University of Oklahoma Press), <i>Unpapered: Writers Consider Native American Identity and Cultural Belonging</i> (University of Nebraska Press), <i>Voices Confronting Pediatric Brain Tumors </i>(Johns Hopkins University Press), <i>Take A Stand: Art Against Hate: A Raven Chronicles Anthology</i>, and in numerous other books and literary journals.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Some of the essays I've included here are serious/substantial and are balanced with lighter topics. A dozen were first published a decade ago. Some pieces are new, and all have been published previously in literary journals and in a variety of other venues. </span>Most of all, my writing is timeless (vs timely). </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-44444856414736883532024-03-09T08:08:00.000-08:002024-03-10T16:04:01.746-07:00Poets & Writers: Ten Questions for Terra Trevor<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ten Questions features Terra Trevor, author of </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">We Who Walk the Seven Ways</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (University of Nebraska Press) with the inside story of how her book was written, edited, and published with insights into her creative process.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u><a href="https://www.pw.org/content/ten_questions_for_terra_trevor">Poets & Writers: Ten Questions for Terra Trevor</a></u></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-71875881645563241482024-03-08T02:00:00.000-08:002024-03-10T16:03:52.976-07:00Craft, Community and the Art of the Essay<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://unpblog.com/2024/01/29/patrice-gopo-and-terra-trevor-on-craft-community-and-the-art-of-the-essay/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1920" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3W45ojYFh3ZhIj4PMCnL-UiR0m5Gw5PV_8SVprYUg5QPKbP-omqp9SiIOlXBMKlAtFYThEiKhH9b8olvqL_cKwpv7KYxKI9x3N2DDnlmKOboPoe0oIsgv3b-_0xf_0fHMDg3-oaKnAQ6cPAmBQv7-Bt6J5b9UM4c6swHl7Y2dWJwx3k8Tcd-hkuINYLLX/w640-h256/patrice-gopo-terra-trevor.webp" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Patrice Gopo, author of <i><a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235800/">Autumn Song: Essays on Absence</a>, </i>and Terra Trevor, author of <i><a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235183/">We Who Walk the Seven Ways: A Memoir</a></i>, share a candid conversation on c</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">raft, community and the art of the essay. </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Two University of Nebraska Press authors, two essayists, two books on different journeys but walking the same path.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u><a href="https://unpblog.com/2024/01/29/patrice-gopo-and-terra-trevor-on-craft-community-and-the-art-of-the-essay/">Craft, Community and the Art of the Essay</a></u></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-69745722727244330612024-03-07T06:27:00.000-08:002024-03-10T16:35:23.412-07:00Memoir, Migration and This Wilderness in My Blood <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXdzQfou-XXHFLcqq9_ZI1g0SvqjCSv1Q5JYVTifi8mpgOI5NQi03xJvfTQX0dU_dQVgaHcAJrvJfSTCBNmmMYahHe3RaRiwY9R4JtshbfphGHWtprb6O186xjkJBxvYlUPDC9P6_k7aGrGBJXZYUFKj470AYmzdrBiHuG_6vALPWmmzsIZUnSG7zg-CQj/s4032/FD60C9BE-9EA5-4D37-9197-7624F5137F95.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXdzQfou-XXHFLcqq9_ZI1g0SvqjCSv1Q5JYVTifi8mpgOI5NQi03xJvfTQX0dU_dQVgaHcAJrvJfSTCBNmmMYahHe3RaRiwY9R4JtshbfphGHWtprb6O186xjkJBxvYlUPDC9P6_k7aGrGBJXZYUFKj470AYmzdrBiHuG_6vALPWmmzsIZUnSG7zg-CQj/w640-h480/FD60C9BE-9EA5-4D37-9197-7624F5137F95.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">My bags were packed and the boxes stacked. We were moving from the city where we lived for forty-three years. We didn’t have a new house to move into, not yet. While we searched for another home we would live in a 26-foot travel trailer on loan to us and parked on land a family member owns in the redwoods in Northern California. </span></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The morning our belongings were loaded into the truck, I walked through the empty house thanking the space, saying goodbye to the home that sheltered my family for three decades. And before I got into my car to make the long drive, I checked my email. The editor at the University of Nebraska Press, sent an email saying she liked the manuscript for my new memoir, <i>We Who Walk the Seven Ways</i>. They were interested in publishing, and asked for revisions. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oh, for joy. Happiness. And crazy-making. Take on the task of revising my book manuscript when I was in the process of uprooting my life? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Time driving alone in the car settled my thoughts. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">When I arrived at sunset I was filled with calm, strength, trust. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The trailer was parked by the barn, in a meadow with other homes nearby. Still, it was more off grid than I expected. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Multiple times each day I walked uphill to the houses where our families live, downhill to the car, up again with groceries, to do laundry, to take a shower. We didn’t have trailer hookups and needed to be mindful of gray and black water waste. But we had electricity, internet, and plenty of cold well water running from the tap. I gained respect for my privileges and felt positive I would become a better person, and I have. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Every day and most nights are bookended with writing. Writing backed against hiking hills with my grandkids and the dogs, or house hunting. I reached wide to be tender, loving, with my husband, and my family. When I write, I go deep. It’s not easy to move between my mind-world and the outer world. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">After a day of writing my daughter’s kitchen is the place to be. Not all of our meals are complicated. Yet the days when we cook from scratch, gives us time to focus on gratitude. The dogs are at our feet, watchful, my grandkids help chop, mix, stir, then dash off, lost in play, then return to the kitchen. We clear the day’s clutter off the table, sit down and savor every bite. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Some people sit and meditate in silence. Others climb Kilimanjaro. Along with my 2-mile morning walk in the redwoods, I hiked to and from the trailer often. When we first arrived, the ground was muddy with rain water. Soon yellow, white and purple flowers dotted the earth and my footsteps formed a path. The flower season was short, the weather warmed. Green foxtails appeared, and quickly dried, sticking in my socks. At first, I grumbled about daily supply hikes in the rain or heat, my arms loaded, and then it became my mediation. I enjoyed the journey, paying attention to the earth, sky. Walking mindfully, stepping carefully. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I am thankful for love and shelter, but we are too crowded in the trailer. We brought too much stuff and it's packed into a too small space. I'd planned to bring only what we needed into the trailer. But instead we included all of the things we "might need" but never did need. My friend Stacy referred to this as a “soul polishing” experience. On my low days I cling to her beautiful words. Stripping off the old expectations, shedding, growing, reaching. I look up and see the trees, the beautiful trees all around me. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Eventually we found a tiny place near the ocean, and for the last few days we lived in the trailer, I worked on my memoir. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">On my last day writing in the trailer, I opened the window wide. The wind played in the trees and the air was heavy with the scent of mountains and earth. I had the window open to keep me company. I was lonely. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I love being with the people I love, and I am also happy alone, and I am never lonely. Yet for the past week I felt like poor me, I must sit down all alone and write. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then I started thinking about how the characters in my favorite books are my friends. Relationships I remember long after I finish reading the book. My most loved books leave me feeling the author invited me over for a long chat at her kitchen table. I favor memoirs so intimate I feel myself leaning over the shoulder of the writer, feeling her thoughts and sneaking into her life. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thinking about the characters in my favorite books opened the window wider for me, and I found the root cause of my loneliness. With revisions nearly completed, already I missed the characters in my memoir. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">While writing I had intimate chats, wandering back over time with Marie, Ann, Mary Lou and Irene. Dancing with Irene long after the moon was full, wearing moccasins beaded in colors of sunrise, clouds and blue skies, her buckskin dress swaying. Irene danced the powwow competitions, Women’s Buckskin style, Northern, in the Golden Age category. At seventy-five with her tight jeans, blue-black hair and flirty personality, Irene reminded me so much of my aunt Jo, I had to keep reminding myself that she wasn’t my aunt Josephine. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I missed the flow of these women, the ones with the grandmother faces, walking the seven ways. How they made me laugh, and told me the truth even when it was hard for me to listen. While writing, I brought them all back, made them come alive again. The women who over three decades, lifted me from grief, instructed me in living, and showed me how to age from youth into beauty.</span></p><p><i style="font-family: georgia;">First published in Women Writers, Women's Books</i></p><p><i style="font-family: georgia;"><u><a href="https://www.amazon.com/We-Who-Walk-Seven-Ways/dp/1496235185">We Who Walk the Seven Ways: A Memoir</a></u></i></p><p><i style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Copyright © </span><span style="font-style: normal;">Terra Trevor. All rights reserved. </span></i></p><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-47604591429699354932024-03-06T04:12:00.000-08:002024-03-11T14:47:40.078-07:00You Who Are In My Stories<div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK_itYtwQYyXOt-2S4pFsR1yZceeXF9eyYDAWWqcBnflTr71tbeJYbDpdlzqBOlSxv25jo2fEo_dwQ7rAYcDIKtKvUDbYx4lH_TjarYHEbOWQLiZ7e9IPUHDddAXQe9wCai-BrYUoVs4QrFx7ISTWNXYBW-dIxDwVXFAS7N83Qg-jRHYLy_fmK6GiNtkKC/s479/SBgl.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="479" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK_itYtwQYyXOt-2S4pFsR1yZceeXF9eyYDAWWqcBnflTr71tbeJYbDpdlzqBOlSxv25jo2fEo_dwQ7rAYcDIKtKvUDbYx4lH_TjarYHEbOWQLiZ7e9IPUHDddAXQe9wCai-BrYUoVs4QrFx7ISTWNXYBW-dIxDwVXFAS7N83Qg-jRHYLy_fmK6GiNtkKC/w640-h424/SBgl.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Photo by Paul Wellman</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>Tomorrow they will hold a memorial service for you in the beautiful grove where we celebrated your 80th birthday. I’m sad I can’t travel to hold space for you, to celebrate your life on earth with all of our friends. Some of our other friends also cannot travel to be there. And yet in the ways of our ancestors, and all things that never die, we will be there, we will all be there together holding space for you, not in flesh and blood, but of souls and songs. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">You who are in my stories, today you are making your transition, walking on. As you know, my stories are not only about me, they are also about you, and our friends whose lives are braided with mine, defining it, and shaping me. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In my stories I've offered a measure of privacy with some name changes. But what has not changed is the love and time you gave. I’m holding the love and the gift of your time, helping me give to others. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">This morning the ocean is reflecting the sunlight and is shining like thousands of diamonds. My grandson and I walked for 2 miles along the sand, exploring, looking for seashells rounded smooth by the waves. It was a good day for collecting driftwood too. In my mind I brought you along with us on our walk. The bits and pieces of shells we picked up would delight you, perfect for art projects. You will be also be happy to know I’m wearing the beaded medicine pouch you made for me twenty-five years ago. So please know I am protected. If I forget to put it on in the morning I hear your voice, reminding me. Your beadwork lets me feel close to you, and reminds me of all our years and great times together, the lessons you gave, and the way you believed I could, and taught me how. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sage down, and prayer up. The sunrise singers have come for you. A high sweet trill of voices, abalone beads swaying, carrying songs from the ancestors. I'm pretty sure the sunrise ceremony now rides in my heart, and is carrying me. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I love you my friend, auntie and sister. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Donadagohvi. Until we meet again. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gratitude, Respect, Caring, Compassion, Honesty, Generosity, Wisdom.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Copyright © </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Terra Trevor. All rights reserved. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-12093221801409520562024-03-05T01:00:00.000-08:002024-03-10T16:36:10.482-07:00Dancing to Remember<span><div><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlvnYuOmPtCND2o2YNSdix8Fo0cBgq2JDjwXzvCYR_wM2hswNwhapYF36zESNUZWF89M0OpzlEeAkN5nCmPo6cw-srZUBeK4W9v1CcNL9Y0xT6noS8_A2am0fRfA-KqKWLdC0H1VtmWK6eXED-i8F0ut8BmKNL3ICzodISHPT6K56lsKdR4K3YUNhpJg/s640/118963335_10220929939692558_8801825843138438886_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlvnYuOmPtCND2o2YNSdix8Fo0cBgq2JDjwXzvCYR_wM2hswNwhapYF36zESNUZWF89M0OpzlEeAkN5nCmPo6cw-srZUBeK4W9v1CcNL9Y0xT6noS8_A2am0fRfA-KqKWLdC0H1VtmWK6eXED-i8F0ut8BmKNL3ICzodISHPT6K56lsKdR4K3YUNhpJg/w640-h426/118963335_10220929939692558_8801825843138438886_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I am gathered with friends and family under a bead blue California sky. Powwow weekend. Santa Ynez Chumash Inter-Tribal. My shawl is folded over my arm. I listen to the wind, spilling through the tree leaves. </span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Time merges with timelessness. Memories circle and carry me to a day forty years ago, when I stood on this good land, near the oak tree for the first time, with my young children gathered about. </span><span><span>The same tree I am standing under today. </span></span></span></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I lean my back against this oak. This tree, giver of life. She has raised a community with song, dance and prayer. We return to this land, to this tree, in October every year. Laughter, flirting and romance in lives young and old take place all around her. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">She stands sentry. Her autumn softened leaves, swept up from a cool mountain breeze, fall gently on American Indian fathers holding sleeping babies. Mothers trading stories, their shiny cut beads reflecting light while braiding their children’s hair, with feathers in the colors of the earth, trailing. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><span><br /></span><span>There were difficult times too for this oak tree, when she witnessed wild fires raging, drought years with dust rising against the clear sky. The times when her branches sheltered human arguments and angry outbursts, but mostly she is surrounded by love and caring. </span></span><br /><span><span><br /></span><span>I stand high upon a flat rock, my eyes roaming, taking in the day, the years. Filling my lungs with sweet fragrances of the damp Mother Earth. Feeling my body grow light, like the feathers of the red tail hawk touching the soft clouds. </span></span><br /><span><span><br /></span><span>For the record I am not California Indian. I'm mixed-blood Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, and for forty-three years I lived in an area that makes up the traditional Chumash homeland. I spent those years walking gently, a guest on this good land and I hold the culture, traditions and history of the Chumash people in my heart. For my Chumash friends this is their landscape of time. </span></span><br /><span><span><br /></span><span>I remember the words of my aunties and my grandmothers, about how each person is a connection to history and when we gather around the area and form a circle around the drums, singers and dancers we are all connected, and it's our way of saying that American Indian people are still here. This is our celebration of life past, present and future. </span></span><br /></span><span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><span>First published in<i> News from Native California, </i></span></span><span><span><span>a</span><span> quarterly magazine devoted to California's Indian peoples published </span></span></span><span>by Heyday Books. </span><span>This essays also appears in </span><i>We Who Walk the Seven Ways </i><span>by Terra Trevor. (University of Nebraska Press).</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Copyright © </span><span>Terra Trevor. All rights reserved.<span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></span></span></div></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-22495788720755866332024-03-03T07:30:00.000-08:002024-03-11T14:52:56.192-07:00My Journey Toward Less<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeXBRMhIlRGVgrTnP1HGOF8oV70yvGd0LlD0PysvvnErWueOlhwqusDuHklspc9Qo_h1j2hvfmcN4HUJMH9ep-ydAg6Lnt1MOs8OJZW9CG0Ds11WaKFec01-mMKnusft5l3iq_EitZ2I6M/s1600/sfdp_+jan_17_2015+%252826%2529ii.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1071" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeXBRMhIlRGVgrTnP1HGOF8oV70yvGd0LlD0PysvvnErWueOlhwqusDuHklspc9Qo_h1j2hvfmcN4HUJMH9ep-ydAg6Lnt1MOs8OJZW9CG0Ds11WaKFec01-mMKnusft5l3iq_EitZ2I6M/w268-h400/sfdp_+jan_17_2015+%252826%2529ii.jpg" width="268" /></a></div>Driving home from the department store I thought about my problem. I wanted to own less clothing. To have only what I loved and needed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My desire for a moderately minimalistic wardrobe began six months after my fifteen-year-old son on died. It was 1999, and I was doing laundry. I walked past my son's bedroom, a room that was immortalized with everything in place exactly as it had been when he was alive. </span><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I felt a tiny wave of strength surface, a glimmer of faith bringing me to understand I was ready to begin the process of letting go of his things. But I needed to do it in baby steps. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I cleared out a stack of his outgrown clothes. It was the only way my mother’s heart could manage the task. </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">He was fifteen years old when he left this earth, and I let go first of what no longer would have fit him. Slowly, over a period of time, I gave away all of my son’s clothes, keeping only his sweatshirt for me to breath in the scent of him, to bury my face in long nights of remembering.</span><div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Next I began tossing things from my own well-stocked closet, giving away good quality clothes that I seldom wore—clothing that no longer fit the newly evolving me. Each month I eyeballed my closet and convinced myself to part with more and more. At the time it didn’t occur to me that I was beginning to walk toward a stress-free lifestyle of owning less. </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Back then I wondered if maybe my grief and sorrow had taken a dangerous turn. My family also worried about me.</span></div><div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I was forty-six years old, and the gentle, generous part of me that cheers for myself wanted me to have a plentiful wardrobe. But I wanted it to be small, no excess, and only what I loved and needed. At the end of each season I edited my closet, took stock of what needed to be replaced. I removed any neglected items to give to thrift stores or to friends.
I was getting to know myself with a new identity. I was a mother without her son, and I craved simplicity, to own less, to be surrounded with beauty and find my rhythm without a lot of clutter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In addition to my work as a freelance writer, I also worked in a corporate office environment and the majority of my wardrobe centered on work clothes. There was a strict dress code requiring a tailored look with structured jackets. In following the guidelines somewhere along the way I lost my sense of personal style.
I had no idea what would be in my ideal wardrobe, so even if I could have tossed everything out and begin anew I didn’t know what I wanted other than for my wardrobe to be smaller and more workable, with everything worn often and loved. But other than that I hadn’t a clue.
With frequent editing, although my closet was not bare, it had a forlorn look. My family members encouraged me to shop for new clothes, and I did.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To map out a new me I gathered purples, reds, earth tones, and hues of tan and green. I searched for travel friendly clothes that hinted of a well-used passport and would not wrinkle, versatile clothes that could be accessorized for work, yet casual enough to wear on the weekend. Most of all I wanted clothing I’d feel happy wearing. With my husband and daughter urging me, I began the process of updating my wardrobe. But I always stayed within a careful budget, and never had credit card debit.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At home I dumped the contents of my shopping bag on my bed—a steel gray sweater to glide over a jersey skirt or to pair with jeans. I cut the tags off, and a few minutes later I tied them back on with a piece of clear plastic thread.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Jenny-dog curled by the door, gave a low growl and the red-brown fur on her neck stood up. Outside I could hear weeds rustling and I grabbed onto the dog’s collar so that she wouldn't move. And that’s when I saw the coyote, young and lean sprint off down towards the creek bed. I scratched my dog’s neck and raked my fingers through her fur and found a flea, and then another. Usually I never forgot to give the dog her medication, but this time I had procrastinated. Without a doubt I knew I must get back in the car and go to the vet’s office and buy what we needed to rid the dog of fleas. And while I was out I could return the sweater.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That afternoon was a marker moment. I didn’t know what, but I could feel something take root within me—an awakening. I was moving further and further away from what I wanted most—to own less. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">From a rocker by the open window I spent the rest of the day watching Scrub Jays dart from branch to branch, until the afternoon shadows melted into liquid dusk, and the wind turned wild. Then I removed the tag and pulled on the new gray sweater, feeling its silky texture against my skin, and I said a vow to keep the sweater, to wear it on any ordinary day, instead of saving it for good, because my life is now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I sat while the stars, one by one, began to light the sky, and let the chill air of mother earth embrace me.
It would take me a few more years to break the habit of saving clothes for good, and to find Project 333 and learn about a community of good people who embrace the concept of living with less, and to reach the good place where I am now— but that afternoon was a beginning.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: georgia;">Copyright © 2014 Terra Trevor. All rights reserved. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thank you to Courtney Carver, founder of <a href="https://bemorewithless.com/">Be More With Less</a> for featuring a link to this essay on her website. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: georgia;">Photo © Santa Fe Daily Photo. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.</span></div>
</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-50505828810888562162024-03-01T02:00:00.000-08:002024-03-11T14:48:03.458-07:00Race, Ethnicity and My Face<span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj_mE0QNR6tYdRkTJHFzUD_PlqhAZMS_8b5dA0hxrmu0CaLWfFdeRanmCfpmSbrPK8PV5qEAfQCrGEfXJqqE1xYVjkMjzoh-96WRS5TGQUI7FL0HbSWLpye5XtzVz7HrWaGAwojWyAeszuyv0By8sSnjbFbA3rLzGOR7d8IKtORQUrtXGmrXmSqLm1AlkC/s1000/safe_image.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="1000" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj_mE0QNR6tYdRkTJHFzUD_PlqhAZMS_8b5dA0hxrmu0CaLWfFdeRanmCfpmSbrPK8PV5qEAfQCrGEfXJqqE1xYVjkMjzoh-96WRS5TGQUI7FL0HbSWLpye5XtzVz7HrWaGAwojWyAeszuyv0By8sSnjbFbA3rLzGOR7d8IKtORQUrtXGmrXmSqLm1AlkC/w640-h334/safe_image.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>As a woman of Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, German descent, I came of age understanding that I'm not totally Native nor am I totally white. I'm a border woman dwelling between the boundaries. </div></div></div></span><div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have light skin, light enough that some people think I’m a white person. My dad is Native and my mother is white and I was born when they were teenagers in the early 1950s.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I grew up in Compton, California, a mixed race suburb of Los Angeles. The family next door was Bolivian and they loved me like a daughter. My best friend was Japanese and Mexican. Still, when I was 10 years-old, my dad sat me down to have “the talk” with me about race. He told me about how to navigate the streets, about how to stay safe. He also wanted to make sure I understood that in order to be accepted by certain white people it mattered who your friends were. </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">By that point, however, I already knew. <span></span></span></div><div><span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I had discovered that when I went to play at the houses of my white friends after school I needed to be aware of how I was holding myself at all times. I learned to stay alert and watch for clues: sometimes there might be an older brother who pulled his eyes in an upward slant and said something mean about Chinese people; or a father that casually spouted racial slurs at people of color or made fun oof Indians. When this happened, I knew I had to make an excuse to go home and I’d never go back. Sometimes I’d make up stories when asked about my darker skinned, mixed-race family in order to protect them. But if the mothers of my white friends didn’t feel satisfied with my answers, I wouldn’t be allowed to stay at their houses for long. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Things would be different when I went over to the houses of my friends of color. Their mothers would always take me in without hesitation. And if there was a grandmother at home who spoke English with an accent, or didn’t speak English at all I could usually be certain they wouldn’t ask me if my daddy had a job. In their homes, I felt safe. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">As a child I had things all figured out. But when I reached my late teens and early twenties it became more complicated. <span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hanging out with my friends of color meant witnessing them get treated poorly and face multiple instances of discrimination by white people. Being out with my white friends, however, meant that we could expect to be given preferential treatment no matter where we went. When I began dating and went out with Native boys or other boys of color in my community, I was considered “white trash” by white America. I could even expect to have a white man point to my date and ask me what I thought I was doing being with the likes of someone like him. But when I dated the first guy that was white, I was allowed to be white by association and had access to the privileges of white America because of that. In stores or restaurants, we were always served or seated first, before people of color. When we acted up or got into mischief in public, it was laughed off as opposed to being taken seriously with the assumption that we were up to no good like it had been for other teens of color. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">My early adulthood was charged with decisions to make: Should I mention my Native identity? Should I let white people I don’t know well and may not ever want to become close friends with, assume I’m white? Keep my racial identity private from employers and others who would discriminate against me if they knew I’m a mixed-blood Native American woman? With dark skinned family members and dark skin friends? With strong ties to Native America and rooted within a community of color? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then, at age twenty-three, I suddenly found myself employed full-time in a company that was predominantly white. So white, that my intuition told me if my boss had known I was anything other than white, I would have probably not been hired. My white co-workers seemed to only accept people of color who adhered to white social norms and didn’t challenge their biases. They could not accept how vastly different the culture values, thought processes, and social norms of ethnic people were from white America. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I wear the face of a woman with light skin privilege. While keenly aware of the advantage it has given me over my friends and family who are not able to pass, I always make the decision to disclose my Native identity. I never try to pass. Passing would mean turning my back on my Native family, friends and community. Following my experiences working in a predominantly-white company at 23, I began to make sure that at each interview I had for a new job, I’d take a “racial temperature check” to ensure that people of color who looked like my friends and family were always welcomed. And I’d proudly list all the positions I’ve held within American Indian and Asian-American organizations on my resume. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Later on in my life, I married a man who was white and we had a daughter together, before adopting two Korean children. Two of our kids had apparent ethnic features and their black hair and darker skin often caused people to mistakenly assume they were Native American. I knew that blending into white society would never be an option for them. So it was always a toss on whether they would be able to ride on the wings of my white privilege, or be subject to the racism that ruled America when they were out on their own. In turn, I did my best to connect them with their Korean roots by becoming deeply involved with the Korean community in our town. For thirty years, my heart and soul was shaped by my connection to this community for which I am grateful to be a part of. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Now, in my 70s, my gray hair and wrinkled face reveal the many years I have lived. Yet what has not changed is what most cannot see: I am still a border woman. Borders are set up to define or to separate, but I am neither part white, nor part Native. My blood is a mix between two worlds, Native and white merging together to form a third: a woman dwelling between the boundaries. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">A border woman—that is me.</span></div></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><a href="https://santaclarareview.com/store/volume-108-issue-1"><span style="font-family: georgia;">First published in </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Santa Clara Review, vol 108 / issue 01</i></a></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Copyright © </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Terra Trevor. All rights reserved. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-52568667080312270562024-02-29T02:00:00.000-08:002024-03-12T10:44:24.825-07:00We Who Walk the Seven Ways: A Memoir (University of Nebraska Press)<div><a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235183/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2700" data-original-width="1800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgukxPD9iqzNwxFEQAF5GV3jQeoHQ69ldgkdE8tGao0TuSJfBhVlQmCHBwlkD5TV58hw1HRSm_qRwa2sBR9DoAovBHFVukupyTS6OmNKykMPP2dQ6PpBILx8OfkhtRroVP9ENBslDtaLKvkOunGh6KcqxVaTXQspTYvLQx8oeTECMrB-5Qk72NiO0Zcyowk/w266-h400/Trevor_2.jpg" width="266" /></a><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235183/"><i style="font-family: georgia;">We Who Walk the Seven Ways</i> </a><span style="font-family: georgia;"> is Terra Trevor’s memoir about seeking healing and finding belonging. After she endured the difficult loss she wrote about in her memoir <i><u><a href="https://terratrevor.blogspot.com/2017/01/pushing-up-sky.html">Pushing up the Sky</a></u>,</i> a circle of Native women elders embraced and guided Trevor (mixed-blood Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, German) through the seven cycles of life in their Indigenous ways. Over three decades, these women lifted her from grief, instructed her in living, and showed her how to age from youth into beauty. </span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">With tender honesty, Trevor explores how the end is always a beginning. Her reflections on the deep power of women’s friendship, losing a child, reconciling complicated roots, and finding richness in every stage of life show that being an American Indian with a complex lineage is not about being part something, but about being part of something.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Terra Trevor's book is a gentle invitation to journey with her across decades. There are phrases and sentences I underlined, places where I wept, passages that will remain with me as they drew me to insights I'd previously struggled to name. I closed the final pages and knew that in reading this book, I had been the recipient of a generous and much-needed gift. While I could have finished this book in a day, I chose to move slowly, letting each idea, each paragraph, each reflection gently spill over me, allowing the pages to alter me in some way." </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">—Patrice Gopo, author of <i>Autumn Song: Essays on Absence </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><br /></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u><a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235183/">University of Nebraska Press</a></u>, </span><u><a href="https://birchbarkbooks.com/products/we-who-walk-the-seven-ways">Birchbark Books</a>,</u><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <u><a href="https://shop.harvard.com/book/9781496235183">Harvard Book Store</a></u>, </span><u><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/we-who-walk-the-seven-ways-terra-trevor/1141847993">Barnes and Noble</a></u><span style="font-family: georgia;">, </span><u><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/we-who-walk-the-seven-ways-a-memoir-terra-trevor/18680847?ean=9781496235183">Bookshop</a></u></div><div><br /></div></span></div></div><p><i style="font-family: georgia;"></i></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-1583468099726232372023-06-07T01:00:00.001-07:002024-03-11T01:40:32.454-07:00Unpapered: Writers Consider Native American Identity and Cultural Belonging<div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235008/">University of Nebraska Press</a> </div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Edited by Diane Glancy and Linda Rodriguez </span></div><div><br /></div></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235008/" style="font-family: georgia;"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235008/" style="font-family: georgia;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4__CfhAXw0ygloYsO8UAb1zuBDXynwCNiEOPrJc75bHLgEA4ZrGI3Uv3566CHRpW5_la9aA4cRUWQlkcFKfFr7QhP_ao5xsessf7TBFdIO78xhY8gorD2znBgrfU4KR1jTK1O9NVgJY9pS6T50z5N7YLPY27a4JZVX2dq1qUWC56I_oHeTQM6NGAXnA/s319/917oGqXzHXL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="213" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4__CfhAXw0ygloYsO8UAb1zuBDXynwCNiEOPrJc75bHLgEA4ZrGI3Uv3566CHRpW5_la9aA4cRUWQlkcFKfFr7QhP_ao5xsessf7TBFdIO78xhY8gorD2znBgrfU4KR1jTK1O9NVgJY9pS6T50z5N7YLPY27a4JZVX2dq1qUWC56I_oHeTQM6NGAXnA/w214-h320/917oGqXzHXL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" width="214" /></a></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm honored to have my work included. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Unpapered </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">is a collection of personal narratives by Indigenous writers exploring the meaning and limits of Native American identity beyond its legal margins. Native heritage is neither simple nor always clearly documented, and citizenship is a legal and political matter of sovereign nations determined by such criteria as blood quantum, tribal rolls, or community involvement. Those who claim a Native cultural identity often have family stories of tenuous ties dating back several generations. Given that tribal enrollment was part of a string of government programs and agreements calculated to quantify and dismiss Native populations, many writers who identify culturally and are recognized as Native Americans do not hold tribal citizenship. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Unpapered </i>charts how current exclusionary tactics began as a response to “pretendians”—non-indigenous people assuming a Native identity for job benefits—and have expanded to an intense patrolling of identity that divides Native communities and has resulted in attacks on peoples’ professional, spiritual, emotional, and physical states. An essential addition to Native discourse, <i>Unpapered</i> shows how social and political ideologies have created barriers for Native people truthfully claiming identities while simultaneously upholding stereotypes.
<br /></span></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u><a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235008/">Table of Contents</a></u></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-70833629571004486962023-06-06T02:00:00.016-07:002024-01-31T11:34:48.989-08:00Take A Stand: Art Against Hate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.ravenchronicles.org/books/takeastand" style="font-family: georgia;"><i></i></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: italic; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.ravenchronicles.org/books/takeastand" style="font-family: georgia;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirB4-Q6utK5QtEIZvpgLcdbgIn_1ufK2UqOuvgSo9iVR_yOyPUgExaqK44GIg01NLjIgSHG8FyYLdsNnnX2OSocRBuIogteOxvWjJdrFYrPQ0VfFp4JBPfu-RoFFW440wfRIJGEFOnksKlrGZboqWTVIhcNPXsTmMoo1_dOcZwypps-qV6wcpL7luHOA/s200/242273998_10223440113782438_746430645767419571_n.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="141" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirB4-Q6utK5QtEIZvpgLcdbgIn_1ufK2UqOuvgSo9iVR_yOyPUgExaqK44GIg01NLjIgSHG8FyYLdsNnnX2OSocRBuIogteOxvWjJdrFYrPQ0VfFp4JBPfu-RoFFW440wfRIJGEFOnksKlrGZboqWTVIhcNPXsTmMoo1_dOcZwypps-qV6wcpL7luHOA/w226-h320/242273998_10223440113782438_746430645767419571_n.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><u><a href="https://www.ravenchronicles.org/books/takeastand"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Take a Stand: Art Against Hate: </span></i><i style="font-family: georgia;">A Raven Chronicles Anthology</i></a></u></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">I'm honored to have my work included.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“The poems and stories in this anthology offer necessary anecdotes against hate. They are inscription, instruction, witness, warning, remedy, solution, even solace. This anthology is relief.” <span style="text-align: right;">—Diane Glancy, w</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">inner of an Amerian Book Award and the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“We can regard <i>Take a Stand: Art Against Hate </i>as a print-form peace march, an ongoing campaign for justice for all of the struggles embodied in these writings and depicted in the artwork included here.” </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: right;">—Carolyne Wright</span><div style="text-align: right;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">co-editor of Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><em style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></em></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><i><a href="https://www.ravenchronicles.org/books/takeastand">Take a Stand: Art Against Hate,</a> </i></span><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">contains poems, stories and images from 117 writers, 53 artists, with 69 illustrations, divided into five fluid and intersecting sections: </span><em style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Legacies</em><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><em style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">We Are Here</em><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><em style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Why?</em><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><em style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Evidence</em><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and </span><em style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Resistance</em><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. We begin with </span><em style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Legacies</em><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> because the current increased climate of hate in this country didn’t begin with the 2016 election, and to find its roots we must look to U.S. history.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); color: #444444; font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-70828484428192838622023-05-27T01:00:00.059-07:002023-11-24T12:29:26.158-08:00A Motherhood Life Lesson<span style="font-family: georgia;">My babies are all grown. I no longer sneak off to finish that one last page. I’ve learned not to try. Now I’m a grandmother, and it’s easier to just stop the writing for a while. As if by magic assorted little people are tromping through my house again, requiring Band-Aids, water. Pulling books off the shelves and asking me to read one more story and then we snuggle with books on our laps. </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">With my husband I raised three children. Two of our kids came to us through transracial adoption and foster care in the early 1980s. We waded into uncharted territory, as not only were two of our children Korean (I'm mixed-blood American Indian, and my husband is white) but by adding a foster child who was the oldest, and we later adopted at age 12, we also changed the birth order within our family. Next our son, then age 7 in 1991, was diagnosed with a brain tumor—an event that changed all of our lives and taught me to let go of expectations and to forge a new identity. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">What has motherhood taught me? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">If could jump cut back to my early years and have a talk with my younger self, I would say, “Terra you have three children and their childhood will run through your fingers like water as you lift your hand to capture a moment with the camera. In what feels like the flick of an eyelash they will be adults, miles and miles on their own." </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">If I could step back in time, I would teach my children not to fear mistakes, let them know that failure doesn't exist, and that what some people think of as failure is really only a temporary setback.
If I could walk in my younger mother shoes one more time I’d say, “Every day write down three things you adore about your children, because you will want to have this list when your kids are grown. You will want to remember and write it in their birthday cards when they turn 40 and 50.” </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I would tuck notes into my pockets reminding myself—when I’m having difficulties, admit it. Line up support ahead of time. Find a good therapist before I need one. Keep my sense of humor. Whenever I can, laugh at myself. And, so what if the house is messy, again, right after I’ve cleaned it. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Every day I’d tell my children I loved them and let them know they are dear to me, even on the days when they broke curfew, spilled something sticky on computer keyboard, or put a dent in the car. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">If time were returned to me, I’d remember to be kind even when I was sick with a cold, had to work overtime and was in a bad mood. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I would send myself e-mails saying, "Have more faith because one day the searing pain you feel about your son's death will become softer, and like a river stone in the raging water it will smooth into tender grace." </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'd write letters to myself saying don't worry, but always remember one of your kids wears a raincoat on her heart, sealed in plastic, to keep out further hurt and pain. She is hurting from from much loss, and years in multiple foster homes. Hug her lightly and often. And don’t pay attention to what the experts say. You won’t be able to solve the bonding problems, but you can give up your silly notions about the way things ought to be, and allow her to go off and live her life, her way, and love will ebb, like waves rolling in and out on the beach. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Most of all, I would tell myself to let go of my great expectations. To just take care of the moments and the years will take care of themselves. Because things will turn out to be better than what I mapped out and had planned, and that’s a promise.
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>First published in Adoption and Foster Parenting Today.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Copyright © </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Terra Trevor. All rights reserved. </span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-10692931823929469102023-05-26T01:00:00.001-07:002024-03-11T14:55:15.792-07:00Pushing up the Sky: A Mother's Story<p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4E1WKWeoN4y0MXBgfKwsDjVgYthfke4fVdUm8OzxBrhqPSTOYC0oMNk8_7tdKE_oHiBTXsPP0QpICyXmGyv9BxntvbDuSDIBCUZw39CC50ZAK0XBBe4fNO87GqVzyTin-WaOxvBbDf2PI/s1600/Pushing+up+the+Sky.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1035" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4E1WKWeoN4y0MXBgfKwsDjVgYthfke4fVdUm8OzxBrhqPSTOYC0oMNk8_7tdKE_oHiBTXsPP0QpICyXmGyv9BxntvbDuSDIBCUZw39CC50ZAK0XBBe4fNO87GqVzyTin-WaOxvBbDf2PI/w206-h320/Pushing+up+the+Sky.jpg" width="206" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><br /></div><div>"Terra Trevor’s ‘<i><a href="https://www.terratrevorauthor.com/p/pushing-up-sky-memoir-by-terra-trevor.html">Pushing up the Sky</a></i><span>’ is a revelation of the struggles and triumphs packed into the hyphens between Korean and Native American and American. From her, we learn that adoption can best be mutual, that the adoptive parent needs acculturation in the child’s ways. With unflinching honesty and unfailing love, Trevor details the risks and heartaches of taking in, the bittersweetness of letting go, and the everlasting bonds that grow between them all. With ‘<i>Pushing up the Sky</i>’, the ‘literature of adoption’ comes of age as literature, worthy of an honored place in the human story." </span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: right;">—Robert Bensen, editor of </span><i style="color: #444444; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Children of the Dragonfly: Native American Voices on Child Custody and Education</i></div></span><div><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="color: #444444; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="color: #444444; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-style: normal; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: georgia;"><b>Pushing up the Sky: A Mother's Story</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-style: normal; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: georgia;">1st Edition Hardcover: 230 pages</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-style: normal; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt .5in; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><a href="https://www.wearekaan.org/history">Publisher: KAAN; 1st edition 2006</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-style: normal; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt .5in; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-style: normal; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt .5in; text-autospace: none;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover Art by Marcia Adams Ho</span></span></div></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u><a href="https://www.terratrevorauthor.com/p/pushing-up-sky-memoir-by-terra-trevor.html">New ebook edition</a></u></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-55968812320452609362022-10-23T10:11:00.003-07:002023-10-16T13:46:26.881-07:00The Cherokee Word for Water<p><span style="background-color: white;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="color: #666666;"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="color: #666666;">I</span> </span><span>grew up within in a large extended Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca family, with lots of cousins, grandparents and great-grandparents, with roots in Oklahoma. Great-grandma could fix a meal to feed fifteen of us and I loved to sit beside her coal black stove, listening to her stories. I’m the granddaughter of sharecroppers, and I </span><span>was born to a teenage mother and father in 1953.<span style="background-color: white;"> </span>When I was young, we were poor—but we had water. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Having water meant we always had plenty to eat. We had fresh running water to rinse, soak and simmer pots of pinto beans and black-eyed peas. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the summer when rainfall was not plentiful, since the water table was usually high, we could turn the hose on to soak the apple and peach tree and their fruit fed us in return.</span></div><div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There was water for pie baking, and when the sun seared overhead water to mix with Kool-Aid to freeze into popsicles. Home canned goods must be put up in hot, sterilized jars and we had water for boiling before we used them. We had water to wash our hands before pressing a tortilla on a hot skillet, and it was clean and safe to drink.<span style="background-color: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>When no one else believed in them, they believed in each other. </b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Set in the early 1980s, the story of </span><a href="https://www.cherokeephoenix.org/Article/index/9834">The Cherokee Word for Water</a><span> begins in a small town in rural Oklahoma where many houses lack running water. The film tells the story of a tribal community joining together to build a waterline by using traditional Native values of reciprocity and interdependence and is told from the perspective of Wilma Mankiller and Charlie Soap, who join forces to battle opposition and build a 16-mile waterline system using a community of volunteers. In the process, they inspire the townspeople to trust each other, to trust their way of thinking, and to spark a reawakening of the universal indigenous values of reciprocity and interconnectedness. This project also inspired a self-help movement in Indian Country that continues to this day.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />“<a href="https://www.cherokeephoenix.org/Article/index/9834">The Cherokee Word for Water</a>” is dedicated to Wilma Mankiller’s vision, compassion and incredible grace, and tells the story of the work that led her to become the Chief of the Cherokee Nation. The film <span style="background-color: white;">was funded through the Wilma Mankiller Foundation to continue her legacy of social justice and community development in Indian Country. </span></span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-46698396826277565312021-09-01T03:00:00.011-07:002023-10-16T13:48:42.095-07:00Yellow Medicine Review<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq5no_r1I4PolWFTM8_7IIiCLQ0u8f5UUqmkVSvs8gsDqI7BhPOF6V_UpZ3JNn2iEisR_WKvXSSm0gyTAf0TBEeuGO61KclGszcbl4x65CMagiuuFJarzbacoLGGdj0_yvguQlVjW7onGA/s2048/199299414_10159472623908293_245129016534745525_n.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1377" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq5no_r1I4PolWFTM8_7IIiCLQ0u8f5UUqmkVSvs8gsDqI7BhPOF6V_UpZ3JNn2iEisR_WKvXSSm0gyTAf0TBEeuGO61KclGszcbl4x65CMagiuuFJarzbacoLGGdj0_yvguQlVjW7onGA/w214-h320/199299414_10159472623908293_245129016534745525_n.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div>Indigenous writers, young, old, established, emerging, traditional, urban, two spirt, academic, incarcerated, are brought together. We are sharing our voices, our best words, the thing we do in our community. <span> </span></div></span><p></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I’m honored to have my work included. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Learning to Grow Right as an Elder</i>, an excerpt from my memoir, We Who Walk the Seven Ways<b>,</b> shares space with a unique tapestry of voices, and speaks to the diversity and complexity of Native writings and culture. </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.yellowmedicinereviewstore.com/store/p37/Yellow_Medicine_Review_Spring_2021.html"><i>Yellow Medicine Review</i></a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.yellowmedicinereviewstore.com/store/p37/Yellow_Medicine_Review_Spring_2021.html"><i>A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought</i></a></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-509013417514244212021-09-01T01:00:00.001-07:002023-12-27T08:38:06.048-08:00Yellow Medicine Review: Women’s Wisdom, Women’s Strength<div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq5M52Ba-V31qqp7OZ1JFUNrQ0Gr-EwJH6CupsJ_iFevbSNlXr89I-yysZZa4K5rrC4dimp7Q4hMPUXXanqkQlNhcWGe4Zm53wKXyFLWOwAwlKTFCvS3pXp87te2D725n2NDIubf8bMN3-/s1364/134670105_10159069429993293_8822579204091079915_o.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1364" data-original-width="902" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq5M52Ba-V31qqp7OZ1JFUNrQ0Gr-EwJH6CupsJ_iFevbSNlXr89I-yysZZa4K5rrC4dimp7Q4hMPUXXanqkQlNhcWGe4Zm53wKXyFLWOwAwlKTFCvS3pXp87te2D725n2NDIubf8bMN3-/w213-h320/134670105_10159069429993293_8822579204091079915_o.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div>“Remember that I am just a woman who is living a very abundant life. Every step I take forward is on a path paved by strong Indian women before me.” </div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">—Wilma Mankiller </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">From our grandmothers and aunties and sisters to the women who write stories, lead states, and sit as poet laureate for the United States, we turn to Native women for their strength, wisdom, and leadership. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Oh woman </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Remember who you are </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Woman </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is the whole earth.” </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The Blanket Around Her” </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">—Joy Harjo </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’m honored to have my work included. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Growing Old in a Beautiful Way </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">page 59)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> is an excerpt from my memoir, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">We Who Walk the Seven Ways, </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press, Spring 2023.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><u><a href="https://www.yellowmedicinereviewstore.com/store/p36/Yellow_Medicine_Review_Fall_2020.html">Yellow Medicine Review: Women's Wisdom, Women's Strength</a></u></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought</i></span></div><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-68626745045801629532019-10-16T09:37:00.007-07:002023-07-01T14:02:05.331-07:0010 of my favorite places in the US where you can experience Native American cultures responsibly<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZhUKg1BjALkCBEStYCJ9kdwNd02M46TySNcFNTa86tnQQbS7zu5BHl9rVq0kRiAUXHmf5EZ5ExoV3KzEJL4ofI3SIsWUv7VhKsndcU7bgUWjIfQXofRwH1y8nrPUaUQoKd4fNTMMKk0Aq/s1000/121109168_10221116076625865_1032147994436816019_o.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="1000" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZhUKg1BjALkCBEStYCJ9kdwNd02M46TySNcFNTa86tnQQbS7zu5BHl9rVq0kRiAUXHmf5EZ5ExoV3KzEJL4ofI3SIsWUv7VhKsndcU7bgUWjIfQXofRwH1y8nrPUaUQoKd4fNTMMKk0Aq/w400-h209/121109168_10221116076625865_1032147994436816019_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></div>One of my earliest memories is watching Grandma sew beads on Uncle Elmer’s deer skin leggings. Listen to my grandmother and you’ll hear stories about me in diapers moving to the heartbeat of the drum. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Talk to me and I’ll tell you about my husband recalling how unfamiliar he felt when he first met me and found himself the only non-Indian person among American Indians. Blending our lives (and later raising our children) helped me gather opportunities where he could begin to understand and learn about Native lifeways. </span></div><div><br /></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Recently an editor invited me to contribute an article about friendly places to experience Native American cultures. While researching the piece I had fun traveling from my armchair revisiting some of my favorite places. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You will notice that the title of the original article says culture. It ought to read <b>cultures</b>, reflecting the fact that Native American people are of many tribes, Nations, cultures, languages and histories. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I greatly enjoyed researching and writing the article and I’m thankful for the invitation to take my readers into Native America to visit the thriving lifeways of a continuing land and people. </span><br /><p><a href="https://matadornetwork.com/read/10-places-us-can-experience-native-american-culture/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Read my article at Matador Network to see 10 of my favorite places to discover modern-day Indian life and to observe tribal descendants echo and give expression to cultural traditions.</a> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-29393685816643541672017-03-22T07:07:00.023-07:002024-03-11T02:07:21.322-07:00Tending the Fire: Native Voices and Portraits <div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">University of New Mexico Press</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">I’m honored to have my work and portrait included.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><br /></span><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIg6njOr8Bsq4taILjESyevMWWnYGaQOc_pnRht7zoXpakTviP3MnEsOSsxHIaOLG9oMrJc5WfNiSoXkVNghpvW7vP41jz7djob1te7E8hEkUuE4IjUUTTMJR8JkRnT4sSvV_xPB7kOnAM/s196/9780826356451.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="196" data-original-width="147" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIg6njOr8Bsq4taILjESyevMWWnYGaQOc_pnRht7zoXpakTviP3MnEsOSsxHIaOLG9oMrJc5WfNiSoXkVNghpvW7vP41jz7djob1te7E8hEkUuE4IjUUTTMJR8JkRnT4sSvV_xPB7kOnAM/w300-h400/9780826356451.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="http://www.unmpress.com/books.php?ID=20000000006860">Tending the Fire</a></i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-weight: bold;"> </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">by photographer </span><a href="https://chrisfelver.com/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Christopher Felver</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> with an Introduction by Linda Hogan and a foreword by Simon J. Ortiz, celebrates the poets and writers who represent the wide range of Native American voices in literature today. In these commanding portraits, Felver’s distinctive visual signature and unobtrusive presence capture each artist’s strength, integrity, and character. Accompanying each portrait is a handwritten poem or prose piece that helps reveal the origin of the poet’s language and legends.</span></div><div><br /></div> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As the individuals share their unique voices, <i>Tending the Fire</i> introduces us to the diversity and complexity of Native culture through the authors’ generous and passionate stories, reminding us that “Native Americans today are as modern as the Space Age, and each in their own way carries forth the cultural heritage ‘from whence they came.’ Their abiding legacy as the first people of this continent has found its voice in the hard-won wisdom of their art and activism.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Featured authors include</b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">: Francisco X. Alarcón; Sherman Alexie; Indira Allegra; Paula Gunn Allen; Crisosto Apache; Annette Arkeketa; Jimmy Santiago Baca; Dennis Banks; Jim Barnes; Kimberly L. Becker; Duane Big Eagle; Sherwin Bitsui; Julian Talamantez Brolaski; Lauralee Brown; Joseph Bruchac; Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle; Elizabeth Cook-Lynn; Jonny Cournoyer; Alice Crow; Lucille Lang Day; Susan Deer Cloud; Ramona Emerson; Heid E. Erdrich; Louise Erdrich ; Pura Fé; Jennifer Elise Foerster; Eric Gansworth; Diane Glancy; Jewelle Gomez; Rain Gomez; Sequoyah Guess; Q.R. Hand, Jr.; Joy Harjo; Allison Hedge Coke; Travis Hedge Coke; Lance Henson; Trace Lara Hentz; Inés Hernández-Avila; Charlie Hill; Roberta Hill; Geary Hobson; Linda Hogan; LeAnne Howe; Andrew Jolivétte; em jollie; Joan Naviyuk Kane; Maurice Kenny; Bruce King; Sharmagne Leland-St.John; Chip Livingston; Charly Lowry; James Luna; Lee Marmon; Molly McGlennen; Russell Means; Deborah Miranda; Gail Mitchell; N. Scott Momaday; Catherine Nelson-Rodriguez; Linda Noel; dg nanouk okpik; Simon J. Ortiz; Laura Ortman; A. Kay Oxendine; Juanita Pahdopony; Evan Pritchard; Mary Grace Pewewardy; Ishmael Reed; Martha Redbone; Bobby J. Richardson; Ladonna Evans Richardson; Barbara Robidoux; Linda Rodriguez; Wendy Rose; Kurt Schweigman; Kim Shuck; Cedar Sigo; Leslie Marmon Silko; Arigon Starr; James Thomas Stevens; Inés Talamantez; Luci Tapahanso; Nazbah Tom; Cecil Taylor; Rebecca Hatcher Travis; David Treuer; Terra Trevor; Quincy Troupe; John Trudell; Gerald Vizenor; Elissa Washuta; Floyd Redcrow Westerman; Orlando White; Kim Wieser; Diane Wilson; Elizabeth A. Woody.</span></span><br />
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</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-83317370845937447572017-03-22T06:52:00.018-07:002023-10-19T16:06:39.637-07:00Children of the Dragonfly: Native American Voices on Child Custody and Education<p> <span style="font-family: georgia;">The University of Arizona Press</span></p><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m honored to have an excerpt from my memoir, </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i>Pushing up the Sky</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, included.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEhwZkxtY-Bhy0J2xlXTuL9BUI188eJ6JUzS5yn4T-dSoKWVTLMl7pnVN9bSSDR8MQdYFFEdVqnv17EIt3GIbk-rhcHyg8Qa1jcfVcNLp-TqTKbR0TakIrKQYq6ssSjeOjaRYP-ZZo7alV/s200/dragonfly_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="132" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEhwZkxtY-Bhy0J2xlXTuL9BUI188eJ6JUzS5yn4T-dSoKWVTLMl7pnVN9bSSDR8MQdYFFEdVqnv17EIt3GIbk-rhcHyg8Qa1jcfVcNLp-TqTKbR0TakIrKQYq6ssSjeOjaRYP-ZZo7alV/w211-h320/dragonfly_.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>Native American children have long been subject to removal from their homes for placement in residential schools and, more recently, in foster or adoptive homes. The governments of both the United States and Canada, having reduced Native nations to the legal status of dependent children, historically have asserted a surrogate parentalism over Native children themselves.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><i style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/children-of-the-dragonfly" target="_blank"><b>Children of the Dragonfly</b></a>, </i><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">edited by Robert Bensen,</span> is the first anthology to document this struggle for cultural survival on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border. Through autobiography and interviews, fiction and traditional tales, official transcripts and poetry, these voices— Seneca, Cherokee, Mohawk, Navajo, and many others— weave powerful accounts of struggle and loss into a moving testimony to perseverance and survival. </span></div><div style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br /></div><div style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Included are works of contemporary authors Joy Harjo, Luci Tapahonso, and others; classic writers Zitkala-Sa and E. Pauline Johnson; and contributions from twenty important new writers as well. They take readers from the boarding school movement of the 1870s to the Sixties Scoop in Canada and the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 in the United States. They also spotlight the tragic consequences of racist practices such as the suppression of Indian identity in government schools and the campaign against Indian childbearing through involuntary sterilization.</span></div><div style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Invoking the dragonfly spirit of Zuni legend who helps children restore a way of life that has been taken from them, the anthology explores the breadth of the conflict about Native childhood.</span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-83251976306254070252017-03-20T06:50:00.005-07:002023-10-16T13:49:34.274-07:00In the Veins Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects <div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">POETRY | First Nations and American Indian Poets | Native Studies | History </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666;"><span style="text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692832645/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1485928161&sr=8-2&keywords=in+the+veins+patricia+busbee" style="color: #5d2910; text-decoration: none;"></a></b></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692832645/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1485928161&sr=8-2&keywords=in+the+veins+patricia+busbee" style="color: #5d2910; text-decoration: none;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlXhJBeBm8H-y9eIffi-kyn-VQgTso55nALtL87qq4qp0iF8z-eVd1NQFk6L2GEGfR74TcSllUbPA51XK0xzXdLNCyxyJI8gqp0q-vT0CToHMvyq3R4-Wvor8r-0x0JkBBVsvH9g_I-0EF/s200/51rk%252B4iAkDL._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="133" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlXhJBeBm8H-y9eIffi-kyn-VQgTso55nALtL87qq4qp0iF8z-eVd1NQFk6L2GEGfR74TcSllUbPA51XK0xzXdLNCyxyJI8gqp0q-vT0CToHMvyq3R4-Wvor8r-0x0JkBBVsvH9g_I-0EF/w213-h320/51rk%252B4iAkDL._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Veins-Poetry-Children-Adoption-Projects/dp/0692832645"><i>In the Veins Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects </i></a></span><i><br style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666;" /></i><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">I'm honored to have my work included.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" /></span><div style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Refection of Veins from Dr. Carol A. Hand, Anishinabe poet:</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">We are inter-connected branching vessels</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">carrying the pain of the earth back to source</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">like the roots of the sacred cedar</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">to heal and breathe new life into being? </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Have we been forced deep underground, </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">pressurized through the weight of suffering,</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">to become a treasure sought by others</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">who don’t understand that we carry</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" /><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">healing powers in the wisdom of our ancestors?</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" /></span><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Sacred life interwoven with sorrow, blood memory, in our very DNA</span> </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-36686794660956097612017-03-20T05:24:00.007-07:002023-10-16T13:49:54.926-07:00The People Who Stayed: Southeastern Indian Writing After Removal <p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The University of Oklahoma Press </span></p><p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggHK9br386hTOrZO8nVuu9vDCzpB0afavl7EFdHvOhN4-VqgU2WVl2Sx_VHlw6JFGs6mePdI_DdmY3jipd75XDBNOnsTqWXqXCLG2_ILBhb8NRt8izqC61tFA5aiyY4GY-Wmcy5OdfnscM/s200/images.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="133" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggHK9br386hTOrZO8nVuu9vDCzpB0afavl7EFdHvOhN4-VqgU2WVl2Sx_VHlw6JFGs6mePdI_DdmY3jipd75XDBNOnsTqWXqXCLG2_ILBhb8NRt8izqC61tFA5aiyY4GY-Wmcy5OdfnscM/w213-h320/images.jpg" width="213" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Native literature, composed of western literary tradition is packed into the hyphens of the oral tradition. It is termed a “renaissance” but contemporary Native writing is both something old emerging in new forms and something that has never been asleep. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The two-hundred-year-old myth of the vanishing American Indian still holds some credence in the American Southeast, the region from which tens of thousands of Indians were relocated after passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. Yet, a significant Indian population remained behind after those massive relocations. </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm honored to have my work included in </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the first anthology to focus on the literary work of Native Americans with ancestry to “people who stayed” in southeastern states after 1830. </span><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This volume represents every state and every genre, including short stories, excerpts from novels, poetry, essays and plays. Although most works are contemporary, the collection covers the entire post-Removal era. While many speak to the prospects and perils of acculturation, all the writers bear witness to the ways, oblique or straightforward, that they and their families are connected and honor their Indian identities despite the legacy of removal. <br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><a href="https://www.oupress.com/books/9783716/the-people-who-stayed">The People Who Stayed: Southeastern Indian Writing After Removal</a> </i></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">edited by Geary Hobson, Janet McAdams, and Kathryn Walkiewicz</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-56107678789916778012017-03-19T01:00:00.011-07:002024-03-11T02:11:28.267-07:00Unraveling the Spreading Cloth of Time: Indigenous Thoughts Concerning The Universe<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All the tribes say the universe is just the product of mind... It fits perfectly with the quantum. Indians believe the universe is mind, but they explore the spiritual end of it, not the physical end." </span></span></span><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—Vine DeLoria Jr.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkXHFRASltsHX07kY5eHKrlcp5fg-iVQdoISahZBXcyC7ZkWLfPh_s4qbiveodYpURrhsxD66RCvl7WCS7lLLzfCo4dhAvtvMqisWI_UuOddGHSREdBVi3hityXuHS8Z285gWyYoLizkfJ/s200/unraveling-the-spreading-cloth-of-time-cover.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="133" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkXHFRASltsHX07kY5eHKrlcp5fg-iVQdoISahZBXcyC7ZkWLfPh_s4qbiveodYpURrhsxD66RCvl7WCS7lLLzfCo4dhAvtvMqisWI_UuOddGHSREdBVi3hityXuHS8Z285gWyYoLizkfJ/w213-h320/unraveling-the-spreading-cloth-of-time-cover.png" width="213" /></a></div></span></b></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This brilliant anthology explores q</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">uantum physics in relation to Indigenous peoples' understanding of the spiritual universe.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Includes writings from 40 Native writers from various nations, and I</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">'m honored to have my work </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">included. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Contributing authors include</b>, Suzan Shown Harjo, Gabriel Horn, John Trudell, Dean Hutchins, Lois Red Elk, Suzanne Zahrt Murphy, Amy Krout-Horn, Jack D. Forbes, John D. Berry, Sidney Cook Bad Moccasin, III, Trace A. DeMeyer, Clieord E. Trafzer, William S. Yellow Robe, Jr., Bobby González, Duane BigEagle, Carol Wille`e Bachofner, Lela Northcross Wakely, Georges Sioui, Keith Secola, Mary Black Bonnet, Kim Shuck, Trevino L. Brings Plenty, Dawn Karima Pe`igrew, Stephanie A. Sellers, Natalie bomas Kindrick, Basil H. Johnston, Barbara-Helen Hill, Alice Azure, Phyllis A. Fast, Doris Seale, Terra Trevor, Denise Low, Vine Deloria Jr., Jim Stevens, ire’ne lara silva, Susan Deer Cloud, Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Tony Abeyta, MariJo Moore. </span></span><div><div><br /></div><div><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Unraveling-Spreading-Cloth-Time-Indigenous/dp/1483952878">Unraveling the Spreading Cloth of Time</a></i><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Edited by MariJo Moore and Trace A. DeMeyer</span></div></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-13794078925101323942017-01-04T03:00:00.012-08:002024-02-19T16:03:37.001-08:00Birthed from Scorched Hearts: Women Respond to War<span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq9Bmm7ciIucqzUmvtI11P_N-xVIxjSvM3Wep8Vp2BByKKn8hOkingUHYxlaE9FWSNv6B1109dca1oXLywrvAOtsIi3lFwFUybbFk09cEJw7Ft0MH0zo4Oqmw5KwvdI1ZNh5igp1NNQyjYAvME9avGrlD98I2K33PdTMYz5bkh5653auE6LjqiLLI/s200/birthedfromhearts.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="133" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq9Bmm7ciIucqzUmvtI11P_N-xVIxjSvM3Wep8Vp2BByKKn8hOkingUHYxlaE9FWSNv6B1109dca1oXLywrvAOtsIi3lFwFUybbFk09cEJw7Ft0MH0zo4Oqmw5KwvdI1ZNh5igp1NNQyjYAvME9avGrlD98I2K33PdTMYz5bkh5653auE6LjqiLLI/w213-h320/birthedfromhearts.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div>Author MariJo Moore contacted me about an anthology she was putting together, a gathering of women's voices steeped with themes of war, and asked if she could include a selection from my memoir <i><u><a href="https://www.terratrevorauthor.com/p/pushing-up-sky-memoir-by-terra-trevor.html">Pushing up the Sky</a></u></i>. </div></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm honored to announce the chapter “Fall, 1998” in <i>Pushing up the Sky</i>, along with a new introduction, now shares company in <u><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Birthed-Scorched-Hearts-Women-Respond-ebook/dp/B01KAJTZXI"><i>Birthed from Scorched Hearts: Women Respond to War</i>,</a></u> which includes work by an impressive tapestry of women's voices. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Award-winning author MariJo Moore, asked women writers from around the world to consider the devastating nature of conflict—inner wars, outer wars, public battles, and personal losses and battles on the home front. Their answers, in the form of poignant poetry and essays, examine war in all its permutations, from Ireland to Iraq and everywhere in between.
With contributions from well-known authors including Linda Hogan, Paula Gunn Allen, Carolyn Dunn, Kim Shuck, Terra Trevor, and numerous others, this moving anthology encompasses a wide range of voices. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><i>A page from Birthed from Scorched Hearts: Women Respond to War
by Terra Trevor</i> </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b> </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">On a crisp December morning in 1984 under a bright blue sky in Seoul, Korea, a wide-eyed baby was readied to leave his homeland. Dressed in a pink bunting to keep out the winter chill, one-year-old Kook Yung was carried aboard Korean Airlines, and he set off for a new life; adoption in the United States. When the plane landed at Los Angeles International airport that boy was placed in my arms and he became my son. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">But I’m getting ahead of myself. My story begins in 1953, shortly after I was born, when the end of the Korean War set the course of my life, because the ending of the war signaled the beginning of inter-country adoption of Korean-born children. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">After the war everything changed. Within a country with a long-standing national tradition of pure blood lineage, shared ethnic identity and culture, suddenly there were mass numbers of orphaned children. Many of these babies and children were mixed race, and were introduced to a largely unwelcoming homogenous Korea.
Single mothers were shunned. Crowded orphanages operating with scarce resources were unable to accommodate the high numbers of orphans. In response, South Korea turned to alternatives to find a solution and Korean adoption was born officially in 1954. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Today a growing number of families in Korea have begun to adopt and the country is hoping to eventually eliminate the need for adoption outside of Korea. Yes, the Korean people do adopt, I know this because I was invited to speak on a panel, and it was comprised of four American adoptive mothers and four Korean Nationals who are adoptive mothers, at the KAAN Conference in 2006, held in Seoul. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yet in 1984, when I adopted my son, Korea was a nation still struggling to come into its own.
I had a profound knowing-feeling when the telephone rang the day we received our adoption referral. I was outside watering sprouting morning glories, and before I answered the phone, I knew it would be the adoption agency telling me about my soon-to-be child. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The first time I held one-year old Kook Yung, immediately I understood something was far beyond ordinary about him. He was a calm and centered baby, in a way that let you know he possessed a great amount of wisdom. His presence made skeptics believe in angels. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I didn’t know that my son’s life would be short and that he would live to be only fifteen, and that I was being called for the highest motherhood duty. Yet if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. The amount of joy Kook Yung brought me outweighs anything else, and has made me whole.
</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Copyright © 2008 Terra Trevor. All rights reserved.</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-58719584142005358482016-11-24T08:11:00.019-08:002023-11-18T13:52:42.612-08:00What Thanksgiving Means To This Mixed-blood American Indian<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Often in late November I gather with some of the people I love best for a Friendsgiving. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And yet for me, it's important to honor and hold space for the fact that m</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">any Native American people do not participate in any of form of Thanksgiving. </span>I find it ironic and sad that Native American Heritage month and Thanksgiving have been braided together in the month of November. Thanksgiving, as it has come to be observed in America, is a time of mourning for many Native people. It serves as a reminder of how a gift of generosity was rewarded by theft of land and seed corn, extermination of many Native people from disease, and near total elimination of many more from forced assimilation and as a reminder of 500 years of betrayal. </div></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My family is mixed-race. I’m of Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, German descent, and my immediate family was formed through marriage, adoption, kinship care, love and community. We have loved ones who survived Nazi Germany, and aunties and uncles who lived under the Japanese occupation in Korea through the end of World War II. They left Korea to immigrate to America. Others in my blended family emigrated from Balikpapan. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My loved ones tell me when they came to the United States everything was new—the foods, the smells, the language and the people. They felt alone and out of place while learning to become fluent in English in those first early years. But most of all they were thankful for the privilege of gaining American citizenship. A sense of belonging began to take hold. They were encouraged to assimilate, but they were not forced to let go of their traditions, language and cultural heritage. From that deep place of thankfulness, a respect for the holiday known as Thanksgiving was born. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is in great contrast to my American Indian ancestry, identity, mindset and Native community belonging. Thanksgiving and the myths associated with it have done damage and harm to the cultural self-esteem of generations of Americans by perpetuating cultural misappropriation and stereotyping that leave harmful images and lasting negative impressions in Native American and non-Native minds. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My immigrant family members and intimates know all too well the effects of assimilation. It gave way for thoughtful examination of cultural differences with emphasis on renewal and survival. Never having been washed in the American tradition of the First Thanksgiving falsehoods, there is no standard set linking it to a day in 1621. No myths carried about roasted meats and Indians sharing a table with Plymouth settlers. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m well into grandmotherhood now, doing my best to learn what I need in order to grow right as an elder and to do my part to make better for the next seven generations. I'm not opposed to the tradition of gathering for a Thanksgiving meal with family and friends, yet it must be done respectfully. I tell stories to the children and parents in my community. They ask me many questions about Native Americans and Thanksgiving. I tell them about the Wampanoag people. About this tribe of Southern Massachusetts and how their ancestors ensured the survival of the Pilgrims in New England, and how they lived to regret it, and that now the tribe is growing strong again. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I tell them Native people have a history largely untold and that gathering to give thanks for the harvest did not originate in America with the Pilgrims, it was always our way. I read books to the kids written by Native American authors <span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33;">who are working to make sure that Native lives and histories are portrayed with honesty and integrity.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And so the histories of Native People are painful to hear, still they need to be told and retold and never forgotten by generations of Americans. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But I tell this this story today for ALL people in America, with the hope that through truthful knowledge of the past we will not allow another group of people in America to have their life ways taken from them, to have their ethnicities and cultures erased, to be exterminated and reach near total elimination, even again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><p><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">This article was first published in a slightly different form in the Huffington Post and reprinted at Matador Network.</i> </p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Copyright © 2016 </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Terra Trevor. All rights reserved. </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140625403624466481.post-71160189933419115372016-10-31T08:14:00.011-07:002023-10-17T16:11:54.541-07:00Why Native-inspired Halloween costumes devalue our Indigenous cultures<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2a303e; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">On Halloween I was sitting on the front porch watching Scrub
Jays dart from branch to branch. The evening shadows melted into liquid dusk. Then
I lit candles in the pumpkins we carved and waited for the parade of neighbor
kids </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Trick-or-treating. There was a rush of footsteps and
laughter. I chatted with parents, ooh and aah over the costumes. One kid was
dressed as a purple dinosaur. Another was made to look like grapes wearing a
green shirt covered with green balloons. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">And there was a tiny girl with two long black
braids, wearing faux-leather, dressed as Pocahontas and her dad
was wearing a headdress.</span></div></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; background: white;">I love Halloween, but my thoughts are heavy
saddlebags. </span>It was
unintentional, of course. This father was unaware that it is disrespectful to
dress his daughter and himself as Native American. I could shrug
it off as cultural borrowing and overlook <span style="color: #1a1a1a;">cultural
appropriation, a</span>fter
all, he means well. But I can’t. As Native American people we are a culture—not
a costume. I <span style="color: black;">understand that wearing
a culture as costume is not intended to hurt most of the time. However, the
fact of the matter is that it does. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;">Native social justice
activists have been speaking out against Native American themed costumes for
decades, yet companies still produce them, and stores still order and sell
them. When I contacted a number of the costume supply stores in my city and
state the owners I spoke with said that their </span><span style="background-color: white; background: white;">Pocahontas, Indian Brave and Big Chief costumes
are top sellers, and they would lose business if they didn’t stock and sell
them. </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Some people buy and wear these costumes out of naiveté and others in a blatant disregard, disrespect and
irreverence.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Our Native
American regalia is a tradition for our Native people, and the wearing of it is
a distinctly indigenous activity. <span style="background-color: white; background: white;">It is imbued with spiritual meaning<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span>and<span style="background-color: white; background: white;"> an expression of culture and
identity. For Native dancers, not only is the act of dancing that expression, but
also the wearing of dance regalia is a visible manifestation of one's heritage.
</span><span style="background-color: white; background: white;">Often
the beadwork contains personal motifs that reflect the dancer’s tribe and
frequently beadwork is created by a family member and given as a gift to the
dancer. </span></span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Feathers receive utmost respect. </span><span style="background-color: white; background: white;">Regalia is one of the most powerful symbols of
Native identity and is considered sacred.</span><span style="background-color: white; background: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; background: white;">This is one reason why it is inappropriate to
refer to regalia as a "costume."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; background: white;">However we (by we, I mean American society) are stuck in a
mode where too many people tolerate imitating American Indian people. These
activities are indicative of an ignorant society that refuses to see American
Indian people as people.</span><span style="background-color: white; background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; background: white;">Most damaging is the Halloween "</span><span style="color: black;"> Pocahottie” and “Sexy Indian Girl” costumes
which have gained <span style="background-color: white; background: white;">popularity. I can begin by
referencing statistics about how many Native women are sexually assaulted (one
in three). The </span></span><span style="color: #333333;">rate of sexual assault is more than twice the
national average, </span><span style="background-color: white; background: white;">stressing the point that dressing up and playing Indian is
not a harmless activity. </span><span style="color: #262626;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">When a costume or sexiness<i> </i>is based on race, ethnicity,
or culture, human people are being extracted for the sake of making the wearer
of the costume feel powerful, or exotic. </span>There
is also cultural appropriation. It involves members of a dominant group
exploiting the culture of a less privileged group and equals belittling the
lived experience and ethnicity of those who have birthright. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Native American people are one of the most underrepresented and
misunderstood minorities in all of North America. Too often the First Americans
are depicted as existing during colonization and western expansion, as if belonging
only in the past, but not as people in todays world. </span><span style="background-color: white; background: white;">No myth about Native people is
as prevalent, or self-serving as the myth of the vanishing Native, also known
as “the vanishing Indian” or “the vanishing race.”</span> <span style="color: #222222;">Therefore it’s no surprise so many feel that wearing Native
American-alike regalia as costume isn’t offensive—<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">because in their mind Indians no longer exist. </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In my mind the problem stems from the fact that America has a long
history of regarding its Native people as profoundly different and somehow not
human. By traditional western values Native peoples are viewed as creatures of
whimsy that have disappeared into history, making their images, cultures and
manner of dress and regalia available for the taking. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://matadornetwork.com/author/terratrevor/">First published at Matador Network</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: georgia;">Author’s Note: </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">As a writer of mixed descent, including Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, I neither presume to speak for any sovereign nation nor identify with the dominant culture.</span></div>
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