Category: Author Q&A

Four Questions with Author Devon A. Mihesuah

Posted on by Mari Herreras

September 6, 2022
Today marks the publication of Devon A. Mihesuah’s newest release Dance of the Returned. In this newest work, the disappearance of a young Choctaw leads Detective Monique Blue Hawk to investigate a little-known ceremonial dance. As she traces the steps of the missing man, she discovers that the seemingly innocuous Renewal Dance is not what it appears to be. After Monique embarks on a journey that she never thought possible, she learns that the past and future can converge to offer endless possibilities for the present. She must also accept her own destiny of violence and peacekeeping.

To celebrate the new release, we’ve republished our interview with Devon, where she discusses writing life and even gives us a glimpse at Dance of the Returned. Enjoy!

April 20, 2021

In Devon A. Mihesuah’s new novel, The Hatak Witches, readers are introduced to Detective Monique Blue Hawk and her partner Chris Pierson when they are summoned to the Children’s Museum of Science and History in Norman, Oklahoma, where one security guard is dead and another wounded. Her uncle, the spiritual leader Leroy Bear Red Ears, concludes that the stolen remains from the museum are those of Hatak haksi, a witch and the matriarch of the Crow family, a group of shape-shifting Choctaws who plan to reestablish themselves as the powerful creatures they were when the tribe lived in Mississippi.

In a recent review from Publisher’s Weekly: “As informative as it is gripping, this supernatural mystery from Mihesuah—the 88th installment of Sun Tracks: An American Indian Literary series—is rooted in Choctaw cosmology and contemporary Native American life. Readers looking for intelligent, diverse supernatural fiction will be captivated.”

Below, Mihesuah answers several questions on writing life and what’s next for Detective Monique Blue Hawk:

You have a wonderful reputation as an Indigenous Studies scholar, what brought you to fiction?

I write and teach about racism, colonization, genocide, boarding schools, repatriation, bias in the academy, stereotypes, violence against Natives, activism, and ethnic fraud. These are heavy topics and any Native in the academy will tell you that we don’t stop thinking about them when the work day is over. We carry around a lot of emotional baggage. I don’t care for downer themes in fiction and I have a hard time watching movies that reenact past horrors. That trauma trope is not entertaining to me. Writing stories is a way to create endings that I want. Writing fiction is also a way to express myself in ways that I can’t in non-fiction. I prefer off-beat, odd stories with strong Native protagonists who could be role models.

Have you ever had any concerns sharing Choctaw culture and cosmology in your fiction?

I first wrote about Choctaw creation stories, witches, shampes, Kowi Anukasha (Little People), and time travel in Roads of My Relations. That was published in 2000 and no one has voiced concerns. I explain in the epilogue of that novel and in Hatak Witches that I never write about real ceremonies and that the entities in my stories are profiled on multiple online sites and even on the Choctaw Nation site. I’ve written a lot about Choctaw culture, foodways, and politics. My great-great-grandfather was murdered in 1884 by men from the rival political party. Many Choctaws don’t want the world to know that we have a complex history of violent intertribal factionalism based on cultural differences, wealth inequities, and religious adherences. They become more upset with the truth telling in my book Choctaw Crime and Punishment: 1884-1907 (2010) than they have with my fiction.

What do you hope your readers get from The Hatak Witches and Detective Blue Hawk?

I try to create inspirational characters. My other novels feature strong females. Monique is traumatized from the death of her brother and frustrated with tribal factionalism. She might be slightly addicted to her beer and has a hair-trigger temper, but she doesn’t wallow around in angst. In two future books she most certainly puts that anger to use. She is proactive and I am hopeful she can serve as a role model.

Can we say this will be an ongoing series? (wink wink, nudge nudge)

Yes! I have completed the next Monique story, Na Yukpa-The Blessed. It picks up a thread in Roads of My Relations and explores the possibilities of Indigenous futurisms. Here is the synopsis:

The disappearance of a young Choctaw leads Detective Monique Blue Hawk to investigate a little-known ceremonial dance. As she traces the steps of the missing man, she discovers that the seemingly innocuous Renewal Dance is not what it seems to be. After Monique embarks on a journey that she never thought possible, she learns that the past and future can converge to offer endless possibilities for the present. And that she must accept her destiny of violence and peacekeeping to become one of the Blessed. 

Five Questions with Nielsen and Heather on ‘Finding Right Relations’

Posted on by Mari Herreras

May 18, 2022

In Finding Right Relations: Quakers, Native Americans, and Settler Colonialism, Marianne O. Nielsen, and Barbara M. Heather explore the contradictory position of the Quakers as both egalitarian, pacifist people, and as settler colonists. This book explores major challenges to Quaker beliefs and resulting relations with American Indians from the mid-seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century. Below, Nielsen and Heather get to a bit of the heart of their new book in five questions:

In your book you set out to shed light on the real history between Quaker settlers and Native Americans. In doing so, you offer the chance to change a modern perspective on Quakers and Friends overall. Was that your intention?

That was not quite our intention. Our focus initially was on peacemaking among Quakers and, because there were strong similarities between Quaker and Indigenous decision-making practices, on whether Penn incorporated any Lenape principles or practices of peacemaking into his form of government. During this period of our research, we came across inconsistences in Penn’s time as Governor of Pennsylvania, such as the limits on his respect for, and understanding of, Indigenous cultural practices related to land use. There were also passages in his documents that were clearly paternalistic in tone. Penn is not documented as objecting to the requirements of Charles II that he Christianize and civilize the Lenape, although he did object vociferously to the suggestion, he needed a militia. In fact, a second thread was Penn’s insistence on having no militia. Rhode Island, which also had a mix of Quaker and non-Quaker settler-colonists, chose to fund a militia but include a right to conscientious objection. We wondered why Penn did not choose this for Pennsylvania, even as he was soliciting non-Quaker and non-pacifist settlers for his province? He failed to address the potential for violence. He needed plenty of settlers to make back the money he spent on negotiations with the Lenape but adding non-pacifists to the list inevitably caused an issue when settler-colonists and Lenape came into conflict.

Our intention therefore shifted to a focus on a broader issue, that of conflicts of faith, especially the Peace testimony and the Testimony to Equality. This Testament emerged as a belief in spiritual equality, i.e. that in the eyes of God all are equal.  We quickly realized that in the eyes of settler-colonists, the Indigenous Peoples were not equal. That allowed many settler-colonists, including Quakers, to cheat and defraud the Lenape, primarily of their lands. When this led to war, the Peace Testimony challenged the Quaker response. Penn had not set up any alternatives to a militia, such as Rhode Island’s law allowing conscientious objection. Quakers lost control of the government and never regained political power.   

Do you find that it is difficult for modern Quakers and others to rectify this history with how they may see themselves today?

On the surface we think many Friends accept that some Quakers have acted badly, whether with good intentions or knowingly to reach their own goals, but in practice we sense that our findings go deeper, bringing out resistance. Quakers have long been known for their aversion to conflict and we wonder if this also is behind their responses. It was painful to confront the reality that Quakers quite often did not live up to their beliefs and even more so to find some Friends protesting our descriptions of that behavior.  

Quakers such as the very active Boulder Colorado Friends Meeting have accomplished much toward reconciliation and reparation, as has the Canadian Friends Service Committee. Sometimes it seems easier to blame all those non-Quakers who do not question their assumptions, and to think of Quakers as behaving better than those others. Academically and personally both sides of this equation are hard to accept. How could a religious sect with such a strong belief in their Truth and such strong Testimonies, especially to Peace and to Spiritual Equality of peoples, commit cultural genocide? We hope that some readers of our book will understand why we became so involved with the contradictions of the Quaker faith and with the practical expressions of it, but also saw the potential of the Testimony to Peace and its corollary, peacekeeping. The cost of harms caused by all forms of colonialism to Indigenous Peoples are untenable. Can peacekeeping contribute to a beginning of reparation and reconciliation? 

The damage all forms of colonialism have cost the Indigenous of this land is often untenable, how can documenting this one area help further change or reconciliation?

Colonialism was and still is all-encompassing and insidious. By documenting this one situation, it may help raise awareness among readers of the continuing impacts such as high Indigenous mortality rates, poverty, and political suppression, and the need for resolutions. Quakers believed themselves to be above colonialism because of their beliefs, but they also fell victim to the greed and arrogance caused by colonial ideologies. They are the seeming exception that wasn’t an exception. By reinterpreting their history and showing the accumulating impacts of colonialism on their beliefs and behavior, we are providing a warning story, but also an example of hopeful change, as many Quakers accept the guilt of their predecessors and are working to further change and promote true reconciliation. Indigenous Peoples are working hard to overcome the impacts of colonization that still affect their communities and citizens, but there are many actions that non-Indigenous individuals, organizations and governments could take to offer reparations and assistance, if such are desired by Indigenous Peoples. We give some examples in this book.

How do you think we begin to put Indigenous knowledge into practice now with climate change and other issues at our heels?

Until the advent of colonialism, Indigenous Peoples world-wide practiced sustainable economies, that recognized that humans are just an interconnected part of creation, and a not very important one at that. Human activities are hurting Mother Earth and if we continue, she may become uninhabitable for us and many of our fellow beings.

Indigenous knowledge is the property of Indigenous Peoples and it is their choice if they wish to share it with non-Indigenous peoples. If they so choose, there is a lot the knowledge-holders could teach us about our role on this planet—how to end exploitation of natural resources, how to rebuild our damaged ecologies, and how to live sustainable lives that help our planet thrive, in other words, to have right relations with all those with whom we share the planet. The question is, will non-Indigenous people, organizations and governments listen and be willing to pay the high short-term costs to put us on the right path?

Ultimately, what do you hope readers, scholars, and others get from this book?

We hope that they will understand that colonialism has not stopped and that it continues to have serious impacts on Indigenous Peoples world-wide. Second, we hope our readers will gain a stronger understanding of colonialism’s impacts on the descendants of settler-colonists, its ability to become part of our lives, our ideologies, and our language – to permeate all that we are, even those whose strong religious faith should mitigate against such beliefs. Finally, we hope they understand that it is possible to counteract these impacts as non-Indigenous people become more aware and take action to assist Indigenous peoples in their efforts, as Indigenous Peoples so choose.

Five Questions on ‘Latinx Teens’ with Trevor Boffone and Cristina Herrera

Posted on by Mari Herreras

May 11, 2022

In Latinx Teens: U.S. Popular Culture on the Page, Stage, and Screen, Trevor Boffone and Cristina Herrera explore the diverse ways that contemporary mainstream film, television, theater, and young adult literature invokes, constructs, and interprets adolescent Latinidad. Here are five questions from the authors on teen Latinidad, pop culture, and defeating white supremacy:

How is regular Latinidad different from teen Latinidad? Is it as simple as generational or is it more nuanced? 

It’s more nuanced. Teenagers have long been at the forefront of social change. Whether it’s slang, fashion, dance, music, or social media, teenagers set the tone. As they go, we go. Teenagers today have grown up as digital natives. They’ve only lived in a world in which access to social media and technology is a given. While us viejitxs may have had to adapt to digital media, teenagers today feel right at home on any number of platforms. Latinx teens influence intergenerational Latinx communities in much of the same way. Take, for instance, In the Heights’ Nina Rosario who, as a second generation immigrant, forces her parents to accept that her dreams aren’t necessarily their dreams. As someone who grew up in New York City, Nina sees the US (the good, the bad, the ugly) from her parents and, as such, pushes them to expand their preconceived notions of what it’s like to be Puerto Rican in the mainland US. Or, look no further than the ways that teenagers in the US were using TikTok years before most adults joined the app in 2020. While adults dismissed TikTok as “child’s play,” teenagers (many of them Latinx!) were setting the culture, the same culture that adults today engage with and mimic on the app. We see this same phenomenon play out in fictional media. Teens are setting the tone, and it’s up to adults, whether we like it or not, to keep up.

Pop culture has always influenced all teen behaviors, consumer habits, and how teens see themselves in the world. What ways do you think the growing Latinx characters and pop culture icons influence non-Latinx teens?

One of the major points we make in Latinx Teens is that Latinx teen representation is not merely enough to influence mainstream popular culture. We could argue that Latinx teens have always been present in popular culture, but how were they represented? In the twenty-first century, what we see is that Latinx teens are not only pushing for more representation and recognition, but they’re doing it in ways that have major influences on all teens, Latinx or not. For example, even a fictional character like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’s Miles Morales is enormously significant in challenging monolithic understandings of Latinidad that erase Afro-Latinxs. Moreover, his Afro-Latinidad is intrinsic to his superhero qualities; one doesn’t cancel the other out. 

Do you think one benefit will be the creative work of today’s Latinx teens and what they give to future generations? What will that look like?

Absolutely! This creative work has long term, positive benefits. Latinx teen popular culture provides the mirrors and windows, as Rudine Sims Bishop famously argued, for Latinx teens and other teens of color. We can’t underestimate the importance of seeing oneself on TV, film, or in literature. When young people watch Diary of a Future President, for example, it’s entirely possible for this viewing experience to spark their interest in student council, activism, and politics, to take a stand on issues they find relevant. In years to come, we have no doubt Latinx teens will continue to watch series like On My Block because shows like that, we argue, will always be relevant in capturing the lives of Latinx youth and all the messiness, joy, and complexities that come with it. 

How much further do you think we need to go when we will see fuller representation in the pop culture landscape?

Just as Latinx representation at large has room to grow in US popular culture, nuanced depictions of teenage Latinxs merit a deeper dive. One of our goals with Latinx Teens was to showcase the breadth of Latinx identities. The spectrum of Latinidad is expansive, but this isn’t always reflected in popular culture. Where are the intersectional stories about Afro-Latinx, indigenous, queer, disabled, neurodiverse, and/or Spanish-speaking teens? Of course, many of these stories exist (and in our book we made every effort to highlight them), but how many nuanced depictions of Latinx teens exist on Netflix, in Hollywood films, on Broadway, and on the New York Times Best-Seller List? Until these stories are commonplace in US popular culture then there is still work to be done to achieve fuller representation of Latinx teenagers in the pop culture landscape.

Ultimately is pop culture how Latinx teens can be part of defeating white supremacy?

Our book’s conclusion shifts the focus from fictional teens to real-life teens. This wasn’t by chance. We wanted to use this space to highlight just how badass Latinx teenagers can be! Even fictional representations of super cool, critical Latinx teens, like Lucía Acosta from Party of Five, who is an activist and who speaks out against unlawful detainment and deportation of Latinx residents, can bring about change. But this requires those in powerful positions to back these creative productions so they make it to the small and big screens and into our lives. So when we see real life activists like Emma González, we might think of characters like Lucía Acosta, and we’re reminded that there are Lucía Acostas throughout the US who are fighting for their communities and using their voices in admirable ways.  

Five Questions with Reyes Ramirez

Posted on by Mari Herreras

February 24, 2022

In Reyes Ramirez’s dynamic short story collection’s new lineages of Mexican and Salvadoran diasporas traverse life in Houston, across borders, and even on Mars. Themes of wandering weave throughout each story, bringing feelings of unease and liberation as characters navigate cultural, physical, and psychological separation and loss from one generation to the next in a tumultuous nation. The Book of Wanderers deeply explores Houston, a Gulf Coast metropolis that incorporates Southern, Western, and Southwestern identities near the borderlands with a connection to the cosmos. As such, each story becomes increasingly further removed from our lived reality, engaging numerous genres from emotionally touching realist fiction to action-packed speculative fiction, as well as hallucinatory realism, magical realism, noir, and science fiction.

Here are five questions from Reyes Ramirez on Houston, writing, and, of course, The Book of Wanderers:

Houston is home to The Book of Wanderers. Is there an otherworldly vibe in this Texas city we don’t know about?

Houston is one of the most diverse, if not the most diverse, cities in America; that along with being the fourth largest city in America in the crux of Southern, Southwestern, Western, and Borderlands identities along the Gulf Coast, you encounter some unique things that couldn’t exist anywhere else just by sheer probability, size, and historical precedence. You could drive down a street with a health clinic, an ice cream shop, a nail salon, a video store, a payday loan service, a bar, and a gun store next to each other and across the street have a row of restaurants from different nations, ethnicities, and combinations thereof that would make the United Nations blush. Meanwhile, a car with golden rims the size of a five-year-old child just cut you off and a horse stares at you from its trailer. It’s a blue city in a red state, meaning the person in the Prius you just parked next to blasting a chopped and screwed version of a new pop song, the one with a decal of an anime character and one of those equality bumper stickers, could be strapped with a .38 special revolver so you have to be careful since it’s 96 degrees as a hurricane makes landfall and the potable water you both came for is almost gone. I hope The Book of Wanderers captures as much of that as possible.

What influences do you turn to in your writing?

I love to draw from different sources, whether it be films, books, or personal experience, to inform my writing and individual projects. For example, anime was super influential to me growing up; the story “The Latinx Paradox within Joaquín Salvatierra” is heavily inspired by Gundam Wing and Neon Genesis Evangelion with their mecha suits and the use of young people to pilot them. This, in turn, is mixed with my exploration of scientific research that found Latinxs “live longer than Caucasians,” and my family’s history as being children during war. Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, Jean-Luc Goddard’s 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, historical research, and my own experiences cleaning houses and buildings with my mom growing up were some influences on and references for “The Many Lives and Times of Aransa de la Cruz.” Just all the things, really.

The Book of Wanderers and its characters are so cinematic. Is that something you’d like to see happen with these people, creatures and lives—have them on a big or small screen?

Films, TV shows, and video games are pretty important sources for me to draw from since they offer narratives through means unique from literature. For example, I originally saw “Xuxa, La Ultima” as a third-person video game in my head, informing much of the action and scope of the story. I could also see “Xitlali Zaragoza, Curandera” as a TV show where she solves spiritual and supernatural mysteries in each episode a la Yu Yu Hakusho or X-Files. I suppose “The Fates of Maximiliano Mondragón and Yzobeau Ponce Intersect in Acapulco” could be expanded into a noir parody/dramedy film directed by Pedro Almodóvar (I can dream!). But I think I’m too intimidated by the whole movie-making process. 

Do you have a favorite character in The Book of Wanderers that we might see again in another Reyes Ramirez book?

I don’t know if I have a favorite character since I imbue each one with a bit of me, whether it be through lived experiences, insecurities, hopes, or desires. I won’t say which is which, but an example I can give is that most of the characters have a unique and/or dramatic name that kind of mirror mine since I’ve always gotten comments on the peculiarity of my own. Many of the stories are written as snapshots in each character’s life since I wanted my characters to feel like full human beings, that what you’re seeing in each story is a defining moment with reverberations continuing off the page. In fact, there’s a version of ‘The Three Masks of Iturbide Villalobos’ as a 90-page novela! But I definitely see Xuxa in her own novel, traversing zombie-infested wastelands and encountering different communities to learn about, such as a settlement that worships turtles and how’d she be weirded out at first but grow to find it adorable. Or whatever.

What’s your dream for The Book of Wanderers? Do you have one?

To win all the awards and be loved by everyone! But seriously, I hope The Book of Wanderers is enjoyed by those looking for something unique in contemporary fiction, to affirm that there’s no one way to tell a story, that we as a community must continuously reflect on our past and know there’s no singular way to be. For example, the characters in The Book of Wanderers will speak in different ways, some purposefully outside conceptions of how we experience English, Spanish, Spanglish, all of it, because I want to disrupt the status quo of language in America. I hope that the playfulness in The Book of Wanderers with language, narrative, and form inspires someone to write their own ridiculous truths, to cast aside White ideations of ‘proper’ stories and speaking to create a work of their own, an unrestricted extension of their hopes and fears. My dream for The Book of Wanderers is to connect me to you and you to me, reader.

Five Questions with Wendy Shelly Greyeyes

Posted on by Abby Mogollon

January 25, 2022

On the heels of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Department of Diné Education, A History of Navajo Nation Education explains how the current Navajo educational system is a complex terrain of power relationships, competing agendas, and jurisdictional battles influenced by colonial pressures and tribal resistance. In providing the historical roots to today’s challenges, Wendy Shelly Greyeyes clears the path and provides a go-to reference to move discussions forward. Today, Dr. Greyeyes answers our questions.

What inspired you to work on this book?

I worked for the Navajo Nation and one of the biggest challenges of my job was explaining what type of educational system is in place. There are many systems operating on the Navajo Nation and it gets confusing for families and for tribal leaders. I felt that a book was necessary to help clarify the history of education and how it has grown. I’ve also been fortunate to have worked with some amazing Navajo educational leaders and through much of the work, I also talk about how the Navajo Nation could unify a system that would be more meaningful for our students and community.

Why is Navajo education at a pivotal moment?

Navajo Nation has discussed the idea of unifying an educational system since the 1970s. We have been at a pivotal moment for nearly fifty years. The next step is getting the approval of the Navajo Nation council for a 638 plan that has been drafted and developed. But presently, the main driver of this movement had a lot of turnover with staffing. So it maybe a few more years before this action takes place.

What is the work that’s happening now for educational sovereignty?

Currently, Navajo Nation has been seeking a superintendent for a long time. They finally have found a leader that will drive this initiative forward, and we are looking forward to what the future holds for the Navajo Nation.

What is the lesson of this book?

I believe we should not be afraid of taking the power back from the federal government and the states that educate our children. We gave the right to educate our children with the treaty of 1868. We have the power and the authority to take it back.

What are you working on now?

I’m finishing up a co-edited book on the Martinez-Yazzie lawsuit, here in New Mexico. We have contributions from some of the great minds focused on Indian education and we hope this book comes out in 2023.

***

Wendy Shelly Greyeyes (Diné) is an assistant professor of Native American studies at the University of New Mexico and a former research consultant with the Department of Diné Education.

Five Questions with Seth Schindler

Posted on by Abby Mogollon

January 18, 2022

In Southern Arizona, one in six residents, and one in four children, are food insecure. The Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona (CFB) is one of the oldest and most respected food banks in America. It is a widely recognized leader not simply in providing hunger relief but in attacking the root causes of hunger and poverty through community development, education, and advocacy. In Sowing the Seeds of Change author Seth Schindler tells the story of this remarkable organization’s sustained, compassionate response to food insecurity. The success of the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona demonstrates that the war against hunger, however difficult, is winnable. Today, author Seth Schindler answers five questions.

What drew you to the story of the CFB?

I realized that the story of the CFB was much bigger, more complex and intriguing than I originally thought. I learned about the enormity of the problem of food insecurity in the U.S. and in Arizona, which shocked me; then the surprising massive scale and diversity of the CFB’s operations throughout Southern Arizona; and finally its reputation as a national leader and innovator in the food bank movement, admired for its groundbreaking work in attacking the root causes of food insecurity. The zeal of staff, volunteers, and other participants in the CFB’s programs also impressed me. Finally, conversations with Charles “Punch” Woods, the CFB’s leader during the first decades of its evolution into the remarkable organization we know today, inspired me, convincing me that this was an engaging original story that needed to be told.

To my knowledge, there was no book about a food bank in the U.S. I hope that by writing one, I’ve helped illuminate the organizations like CFB that do such critical work!

How did the CFB get started?

The founders’ mission was an ambitious one—to end hunger in Tucson. They believed that the Food Stamp Program was poorly managed, that too many food-insecure people fell through the cracks, and that too much food was going to waste in the city. Mark Homan, Barry Corey, and Dan Duncan sensed that there had to be a more efficient way to distribute food and reach more of the hungry, as well as make better use of salvaged food.

Their strategy was two-fold: to distribute emergency food boxes (a three-day supply of the most basic food staples) through Tucson’s many nonprofits—both welfare and faith-based agencies—already serving the hungry; secondly, to make it as easy for individuals and commercial operators to donate the food as to throw it out.

The CFB began in a tiny primitive warehouse in South Tucson, with one employee, director Dan Duncan, one volunteer, Arnie Salverson, one delivery truck donated by a local business, a few boxes of canned food, and a $7,000 grant from the city. Yet in the first year alone the CFB distributed 10,544 emergency food boxes and 80,000 pounds of salvaged food! This clearly surprised the founders. They initially underestimated the demand for their services. Those in need, they discovered, included not just the homeless and the unemployed, but the underemployed, the working poor struggling to put food on the table for their families.

Today, operating out of its Tucson headquarters, the enormous Punch Woods Multi-Service Center, and its several branches throughout southern Arizona, with the help of thousands of staff and volunteers, and an annual budget exceeding 125 million dollars, the CFB distributes tons of food through 375 partner agencies to 200,000 food-insecure people.

This story of the CFB’s incredible growth to meet an ever-increasing need over the past half century is at the heart of Sowing the Seeds of Change.   

How did your work as an anthropologist shape your research for this book?

Apart from archival research, in-depth interviews with staff, volunteers, donors, clients, and other CFB participants, along with activities that anthropologists call “participant observation” became essential as the book progressed. Getting out into the field to directly study CFB operations, sometimes working along with staff and volunteers, such as at warehouses, pantries, soup kitchens and the CFB’s community farm, put me in touch with what was really happening in their programs. These traditional techniques used by ethnographers helped, I believe, distinguish this book from conventional institutional histories.

Early on I also realized I wanted the book to reach a wide audience, including the CFB’s clients, and to develop a writing style and a book design—incorporating, for example, substantial graphic material—that would more easily help achieve that goal. I would then also take advantage of my experience as a storyteller and in writing about a variety of topics for the general reader.

Perhaps the most important feature of the book, and my biggest breakthrough in developing it, was the decision to include profiles of a diverse group of CFB participants through the years, and not just the organization’s leaders. These reveal their thoughts about their roles, presented in their own words. In recent years, anthropologists have been criticized rightly for not doing this adequately when researching and writing about the people and cultures they study. Sowing the Seeds of Change contains dozens of sidebar quotes from those individuals who have created the CFB’s culture of caring, sharing and innovating, and contributed to the organization’s success. Their voices personalize the story of the organization and help to distinguish the publication by adding a crucial human dimension not typically found in history books.  

What surprised you the most during your research?

I have to say I was shocked by several things I learned in the process of researching this book—many decidedly positive but some alarmingly negative and hard to comprehend. How do you explain, for example, that in the U.S., the richest country in the world, there are over 35 million food-insecure people?

Unfortunately, I never found an easy answer to this paradox. What I did discover, however, is that Tucson is filled with people who care deeply about the plight of the hungry among us, and who help them routinely. In this respect, the passion of CFB staff, volunteers and others in the community, directed at helping the less fortunate, continues to amaze and lift me. 

I also discovered that the CFB today is far more than a hunger-relief organization, a fact that many in Tucson do not know, and one I emphasize in the second half of the book called “It Takes More Than Food.” The mission today is not just to “shorten the food line” but ultimately to eliminate it through education, community development and advocacy. Several hunger-prevention programs have been developed in recent years with this goal in mind, all directed at empowering the poor and breaking the cycle of poverty that is the cause of food insecurity, especially among the most vulnerable groups—children and seniors.

The CFB, for example, has developed its own demonstration/learning garden; classes in cooking and healthy eating for both adults and school children; a community farm with plots for clients, two farmers’ markets, a culinary training program aimed at providing careers for the unemployed and underemployed; and the Gabrielle Giffords Resource Center that offers social services to clients. It has also drastically increased the amount of fresh produce in its food boxes, including ones designed for seniors and to combat diet-related disease.

In 2018, Feeding America—the national organization of food banks—named the CFB “Food Bank of the Year” in recognition of its achievements in attacking the root causes of hunger.

Why are volunteers so essential at the CFB?

Today there are over 6000 volunteers working with the CFB’s staff of about 140. Such a large number is essential because of the CFB’s diverse activities and ever-expanding programming in a very large service area—23,000 square miles. Distributing food to over 200,000 people in several counties is no easy task, but that’s not all the CFB’s volunteers help with. They contribute importantly, for example, at the CFB’s farmers’ markets, Caridad Community Kitchen, Nuestra Tierra Learning Garden, Las Milpitas Community Farm, and in its many food drives, the Ambassador Program and the Produce Rescue Program.      

Volunteers are the heart of most nonprofits, and the CFB is no exception. However, based on what I observed conducting fieldwork, the CFB’s volunteers are a truly exceptional group—highly dedicated and competent. This take on the CFB’s volunteer work force was corroborated by the food bank experts I interviewed who also believe there’s always been something special about the Tucson community and its compassionate residents who work selflessly for the common good. In this respect, it should be pointed out that Tucson and the southern Arizona region generally does have an advantage over most other food banks in the US. The CFB can draw on this area’s very large retirement community of seniors with the leisure time to volunteer.

Nevertheless, I believe that the success of the CFB’s volunteer work force can also be explained in light of the CFB’s legendary, distinctive culture of caring, sharing and innovating, which is contagious. This culture, marked by the spirit of egalitarianism, was first shaped by its charismatic leader, Charles “Punch” Woods who guided the CFB through its most challenging early phase of evolution, and it remains intact and vital today. It doesn’t hurt either that the CFB continues to offer volunteers well-run programs in which to work and a friendly, family-like atmosphere where respect for others, and clients especially, is the name of the game. Finally, the nature of this volunteer work itself–whether in the warehouse, the pantry or the garden –is innately very appealing.

What can be more satisfying than seeing the smiles on the faces of the people you help?       

***                                                                           .

Seth Schindler is an anthropologist and former NEH Research Fellow and Weatherhead Resident Scholar. He has contributed articles to the American Anthropologist and The Encyclopedia of Anthropology, among many others.

Field Notes: Landscape Gems on Mexico’s Sea of Cortéz

Posted on by Abby Mogollon

December 7, 2021

We recently published Baja California’s Coastal Landscapes Revealed by Markes E. Johnson. In this new work, expert geologist and guide Johnson takes us on a dozen rambles through wild coastal landscapes on Mexico’s Gulf of California. Descriptions of storm deposits from the geologic past conclude by showing how the future of the Baja California peninsula and its human inhabitants are linked to the vast Pacific Basin and populations on the opposite shores coping with the same effects of global warming. Today we share a reflection from the author about his time observing this amazing coastal landscape.

By Markes E. Johnson

Conventional wisdom says that the physical act of making a journey often surpasses the traveler’s aim in reaching a chosen destination. More than 80 years have passed since the celebrated voyage in 1940 to Mexico’s fertile Sea of Cortéz by marine biologist Ed Ricketts (1897-1948) and writer John Steinbeck (1902-1968) aboard the chartered fishing vessel Western Flyer. The resulting narrative published as The Log from the Sea of Cortez become a cult classic much admired for the pair’s holistic view of nature clearly expressed well before the word ecology achieved the common usage it enjoys today.

It has been my good fortune to travel on a regular basis to the islands and peninsular shores bordering the Gulf of California over a span of 30 years, most often as a guide to college students studying geology and biology. During the 1990s, our trips were made overland from San Diego in rented vehicles that entailed long drives on the narrow, winding road of Mexico Highway 1. Later on, the logistics of air travel between Los Angeles and Loreto became more attractive, particularly in light of discounts for group travel. As a teacher, the most important advice offered to my students was to remain observant at all times, even while passing between destinations where studies were planned.  The same can be said for the exceptional opportunities afforded by flights over the Gulf of California, during which I have been known to provide students with a running commentary on the landscapes passing below us under invariably sunny skies.

The most casual of travelers cannot fail to be awed by extraordinary sights as viewed from high above that reveal the bare rocks of a desert landscape juxtaposed against the aquamarine tones of a bountiful sea. To and from Loreto, I find myself glued to the window (left side of the aircraft on south-bound flights and right side on north-bound flights). I am eager to seek out places where I have personal experience or where I know from the published literature that others such as Ricketts and Steinbeck visited and commented on. Much of the attraction is the realization that our knowledge of a landscape grows through a collective process accumulated through generations of explorers, researchers, and students. Many astonishing clues are there to be found in the landscape that inform us about how the Gulf of California was formed and how it evolved through geologic time to become the stupendous physical backdrop it is for such a productive body of water. Several of my favorite localities pop up between the coastal towns of San Felipe in the north and Loreto further south. 

Volcán Prieto: Located near Puertecitos, well south of San Felipe, the volcanic edifice of the extinct Volcán Prieto rises 850 feet above sea level with its central crater marked by a beige dot representing a shallow pond deposit of clay washed from the sides of the crater during rare rain events brought north by subtropical depressions. On the northwest side of the volcano, the equally large Playa Costello Delta emerges from the mouth of Heme Canyon. A large salt flat is reflected in a flat white tone on the volcano’s southeast flank.

Punta Chivato:  Midway between Santa Rosalia and Mulegé, the promontory (or atravasada) of Punta Chivato rises like a “cross piece” thrust eastward into the Gulf of California.  It is the region where my students and I made our first studies in the early 1990s. Red colored volcanic rocks are partially surrounded by beige limestone that define a cluster of islands roughly four million years old during the early flooding of the gulf.  Telltale “Hammer-head Point” as some locals call it (upper right) is formed by a ridge of resistant limestone left in place on one flank of a former island.

Concepción Peninsula: Across from the town of Mulegé, the northwest directed tip of Concepción peninsula comes into sight as the aircraft flies over the 23-mile long Concepción Bay. The 2,362-ft. high Hawks Mountain (Sierra Gavilanes) is the highest peak on the peninsula (lower center). A series of merged alluvial fans (bajadas) spill into the shallows where the bay’s water is turquoises in color. Ricketts and Steinbeck viewed this shore from the Western Flyer on March 28, 1940. Further along at the closed end of the bay, extensive limestone penetrates deep into a labyrinth of inter-connected valleys to show that the peninsula was nearly breached during a higher stand in sea level some 3 million years ago.

Cerro Mencenares: On approach to Loreto, the aircraft starts its descent passing the western flank of the Cerro Mencenares volcanic complex covering an area of 58 square miles. The pattern of eroded valleys that radiate outward from the center of the complex like spokes on a wheel inform that the landscape below was once part of a small shield volcano. Seaward is Punta El Mangle (upper right), where extensive limestone was deposited against the volcano’s outer margin.

Isla Coronados: As the aircraft continues to descend, the lovely “Island of Crowns” comes into sight with its dazzling white beaches and halo of turquoise waters. The island was an active volcano only some 600,000 years ago and the low-lying apron of land extending to the south was part of an extensive lagoon that harbored a large coral reef. Today, the island is part of the protected Loreto Marine Park. The Western Flyer was anchored in the bay on the west side of the island on March 27, 1940.

North end of Isla del Carmen: During the months of November through May, a stiff northerly wind (viento norte) often blows down the axis of the gulf for days at a time. It means that aircraft landing at Loreto usually push farther south over the open Carmen Passage beyond the town before banking through a hair-pin turn to land into the wind on the airport’s tarmac. Spectacular views of Isla del Carmen are on offer during this process. One of the best views so afforded is the salt lagoon on the northeast side of the island (center), where salt was commercially extracted until 1960. The semi-circular embayment at Balandra (lower left) is more accessible to boaters from Loreto and it features the remains of a fossil coral reef that date from a time about 125,000 years ago when sea level was higher than today.

Lagoon at Puerto Escondido: After making the turn to line up with the runway at Loreto, the descending aircraft passes over the inner lagoon at Puerto Escondido. White flecks against a dark blue background are represented by sail boats at safe anchor within the inner lagoon covering an area of 125 acres sheltered by islets and natural breakwaters on its seaward rim. Stopping there on March 25, 1940, Steinbeck wrote that the hidden harbor is a place of magic. “If one wished to design a secret personal bay, one would probably build something very like this little harbor.”

Tabor Canyon: On final approach to the Loreto airport, aircraft descend to an altitude below the crest of the Sierra de la Giganta that form the spectacular backdrop to the coastal plain along this part of the Baja California peninsula.  Steinbeck and Ricketts spent a night camped out with new friends from town who invited the pair to join their hunt for the local mountain sheep (borrego).  None were encountered and Steinbeck was just as glad for that outcome.

Later in life, when John Steinbeck wrote Travels with Charley (1962), he commented that: “People don’t take trips, trips take people. For me, personally, it has rarely been the final destination on a journey to Baja California. Instead, it is about all the experiences on the way. 

***

Markes E. Johnson is the Charles L. MacMillan Professor of Natural Science, Emeritus, at Williams College (Williamstown, Massachusetts).  He is the author of three books on the geology and ecology of landscapes in Baja California: Discovering the Geology of Baja California (2002); Off-Trail Adventures in Baja California (2014); and most recently Baja California’s Coastal Landscapes Revealed (2021) all published by the University of Arizona Press. His last two books include color plates showing landscapes photographed during various commercial flights between Los Angles and Loreto in Mexico’s Baja California Sur.

Five Questions with Thomas Maroukis

Posted on by Abby Mogollon

September 1, 2021

In We Are Not a Vanishing People, historian Thomas Maroukis describes the early twentieth-century roots of modern American Indian protest and activism. He tells the history of Native intellectuals and activists who joined together to establish the Society of American Indians, a group of Indigenous men and women united in the struggle for Indian self-determination. Today we ask the author five questions about his work:

What was the inspiration for this work?
In my Native American course, I cover activism and protest. When discovering that one the first all-Indian activist organization was founded in Columbus, Ohio where I live and teach, I decided to research its origins and subsequently its full history. My early research was to prepare a paper on its on its Columbus origins which I presented at the Ohio Academy of History. I had known about the Society of American Indians (SAI) since I had written The Peyote Road: Religious Freedom and The Native American Church (University of Oklahoma Press, 2010) on the history of peyote and the Native American Church. The use of peyote was controversial and it was one of the issues that led to the demise of the SAI. This added to my interest to pursue the SAI.

One of the interesting details about this work is the role The Ohio State University played. What was it?
In the first decade of the twentieth century The Ohio State University employed sociologist Fayette McKenzie. He wrote a doctoral dissertation on American Indians and began to teach such a course. In 1908 he invited several prominent Native Americans to OSU. They began discussing the need for an all-Indian national organization. Meanwhile several American Indians intellectuals, such as Carlos Montezuma and Charles Eastman, had been discussing such a need for almost a decade. The meeting at OSU was the impetus to establish such an organization. McKenzie was able to get OSU to sponsor the initial conference in 1911. As all went well it was agreed to hold a second conference in 1912: thus, the founding at OSU.

 In order to commemorate the founding, OSU held a three-day centennial conference in 2011, It was titled “Society of American Indian: Centennial Symposium, 1911-2011.” It was attended by hundreds of scholars and activists. The organizers of the conference followed with a volume of essays: “The Society of American Indians and Its Legacies,” 2013. I wrote an essay for the volume: “The Peyote Controversy and the Demise of The Society of American Indians.” This conference inspired me to continue my research on the SAI.

Very little has been written about the SAI. What is the significance of the organization?
It was an organization by Indians for Indians. They were determined to reduce or eliminate federal control over the reservation system so Indians could control their own future.  They fought for U.S. citizenship, challenged the stereotypes of Indians held by the American public, and wanted to demonstrate they were not a “vanishing race.”

They used a variety of strategies to challenge federal control. They protested through lobbying, writing and publicizing their plight. They held annual conferences, published their own journal, wrote books and articles, and spoke all over the country. They fought for quality education for Indian youth. They opposed the federal boarding school system. They helped initiate a century-long tradition of protest and did so without surrendering their cultural heritage.

What surprised you most during your research?
The amount of research material available. They wrote thousands of letters, many published speeches and articles for their journal. There are also many newspapers stories and interviews in the local press in the cities where their conferences were held.

What can today’s activists learn from this history?
As a non-Indian I would not suggest anything for today’s activists. I would recommend buying the book and take from it what may be relevant or not.

***
Thomas Constantine Maroukis is professor emeritus in the Department of History at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio.

Five Questions about ‘Science Be Dammed’ with Eric Kuhn and John Fleck

Posted on by Abby Mogollon

August 25, 2021

Science Be Dammed is an alarming reminder of the high stakes in the management—and perils in the mismanagement—of water in the western United States.  It seems deceptively simple: even when clear evidence was available that the Colorado River could not sustain ambitious dreaming and planning by decision-makers throughout the twentieth century, river planners and political operatives irresponsibly made the least sustainable and most dangerous long-term decisions.

This month we are releasing Science Be Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River in paperback. Today we ask authors Eric Kuhn and John Fleck five questions:

Why did you embark on this project?
We wanted to provide a resource that would contribute to better decision making. In the next few years, the Colorado River basin water managers and other stakeholders will be facing difficult decisions, including renegotiating the river’s fundamental operating rules – questions about who gets water, and how much. We recognized that the river has been legally overallocated for decades. We wanted to understand how this happened–how science was used/misused in the decision-making process and how that misuse of science has become embedded in the river’s governance structure. We believed that with the impacts of climate change adding a new level of deep uncertainty and complexity to an already overused river, it was important to understand how we got here.

This summer we’ve seen record setting drought. For the first time, users on the Colorado River are receiving drought-restricted water. Was this inevitable?
This is a debatable question.  In theory, had basin decision-makers been more curious and more willing to accept the views of the scientists, the legal overallocation of the river could have been avoided. As a practical matter though, the political benefits of ignoring the “inconvenient” science dominated the decision-making process.

Since publication, your book has received a lot of notice. What have you heard from readers since the book was published?
Almost all the feedback and input we’ve received from readers has been positive.  For example, retired USBR Lower Colorado Regional Director Terry Fulp told us that he read the final chapter first, liked our positive tone and message, then went back and read the rest of the book.

Policymakers are making critical decisions about the coming decades of water and the West right now. What do you hope they learn from past?
Seek the active input and perspective of science on all decisions, especially given the expected impacts of climate change on the Colorado River.

Collectively, you have more than 60 years of experience in western water management and reporting. What do you hope decision makers of the future take into account?
Climate change is a game changer. It is adding deep uncertainty to a governance system designed for a variable, but in the long-term a stationary river system. New management approaches will be needed to meet future challenges.

***

Eric Kuhn, recently retired, worked for the Colorado River Water Conservation District from 1981 to 2018, including twenty-two years as general manager. The district is a water utility and policy agency covering most of the Colorado River basin within Colorado.

John Fleck is director of the University of New Mexico’s Water Resources Program. He wrote Water Is for Fighting Over and Other Myths About Water in the West.

Five Questions with Daniel A. Olivas

Posted on by Abby Mogollon

June 17, 2021

Daniel A. Olivas is the author of nine books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry including two volumes published by the University of Arizona Press: The Book of Want: A Novel (2011), and The King of Lighting Fixtures: Stories (2017). In 2019, Daniel was inspired to write his first full-length play, Waiting for Godínez, which addresses the absurdity and horror of family separation and anti-immigrant government policies. That play was selected for the Playwrights’ Arena’s Summer Reading Series (2020) and The Road Theatre Company’s 12th Annual Summer Playwrights Festival (2021). Waiting for Godínez was also a semi-finalist in the 2021 Blue Ink Play Award sponsored by American Blues Theater.

Now bitten by the playwriting bug, Daniel searched for another project. Last fall, he found it in Circle X Theatre Company’s inaugural Evolving Playwrights Group. In applying for this program, Daniel had proposed adapting his novel, The Book of Want, for the stage. He was eventually informed that he had been selected to be one of the five playwrights for this program. Each playwright was assigned a mentor. Daniel’s mentor was the playwright, Donald Jolly.

After many months of virtual evening workshops, Daniel completed his play and now has a Zoom reading set for June 21, 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time. Directed by Dr. Daphnie Sicre of Loyola Marymount University, the play has a cast of 12 actors playing 18 roles. The virtual event is free, but tickets are required and may be obtained by emailing rsvp@circlextheatre.org to reserve your spot.

Daniel agreed to answer a few questions about adapting his novel for the stage.

What was it like to turn your novel, The Book of Want, into a theater production?

It was both exhilarating and intimidating. I loved the characters in my novel, but the book’s structure was not traditional in form. It consisted of interconnected short stories told in various styles. Also, I don’t have an MFA. I am self-taught when it comes to fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and now playwriting. I had to teach myself what a play looks like. But with one play under my belt, I had the belief that I could do this. And with a lot of help from my mentor, fellow playwrights, the actors, and my director, I transformed my novel into what looks like a real play.

The project paired you with a mentor to create “the play you were scared to write.” What were the challenges for you?

Donald Jolly was my assigned mentor. I was so lucky! Donald is so thoughtful and kind, and also a great playwright. Donald understood my apprehension in writing a play that I knew would entail a tremendous amount of thought and creativity. The toughest part of adapting my novel was “killing my little darlings” all over again. That is, some things work in a novel that don’t work in a play. A novel can be very interior and focused on characters’ thoughts. How do I translate that to the stage so that I don’t have a bunch of talking heads and no action? What did I have to abandon? Also, because I had so many characters in the novel, I simply could not keep all of them in the play. So, I had to take about three dozen characters of the novel and trim that number. I ended up with 18 characters, which is larger than many plays, but it works. And the biggest device I created for the play was to take the novel’s late matriarch, Belén—who appears as a spirit through much of the novel—and turn her into the play’s host, if you will. She introduces the scenes with commentary all while smoking a fat, hand-rolled cigarette and drinking coffee. She really holds the play together.

Your writing is infused with wit, surprises, and humor. Are there differences in how humor is depicted on the page from how it comes to the stage?

My novel—as with most of my writing—is deeply steeped in Chicano culture, especially as centered in the urban setting of Los Angeles. I wanted to keep that spirit in the play. And yes, my novel uses a lot of humor which was actually the easier element to translate into a theatrical piece. But the biggest surprises came in working with the actors as they rehearsed for our June 21st virtual reading. When actual people read the lines and interacted with each other, it was easier to see what made people laugh, and what fell flat. I had such generous, smart actors and a great director who helped refine and shape the humor of my play. I owe them so much for their input and observations.

The Book of Want is a family story that explores what it means to be human. What does that look like on the stage?

Beautiful! My actors are magnificent in their interpretation of the text. They bring my play to life, and it would not be much of anything without them.

What are you working on now?

During the pandemic, I had a chance to review a lot of my past writing, and I decided to pull together many of my favorite stories along with a couple new pieces for a collection I’ve titled, How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories. It will be published by the University of Nevada Press sometime next year. The collection includes stories published in different volumes over the years including in books published by the University of Arizona Press and Bilingual Press. I am very excited about it, and I dedicate that book to my late father, Michael Augustine Olivas, who passed away last September. My father had wanted to be a writer, but he was never published in his lifetime. He was very proud that I became a published author even as I juggled a very busy day job as a government attorney. He was also excited that I started to write plays. I think that a lot of his spirit is in my adaptation of The Book of Want for the stage.

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