Indigenous Voices on the Page: Authors to Support this Indigenous People's Day
Indigenous Peoples’ Day is one of those particularly layered cultural observances, especially since “Columbus Day” shows up on so many of our calendars. It's worth setting aside some time on this much-needed day off to pay attention to these competing, coexisting names and the narratives they encode.
We have Columbus Day, and with it the narrative of European “discovery” and conquest, of violence and gold and exploitation in the “New World.” And then we have Indigenous Peoples' Day, which gives us a different narrative: the narrative of silenced Native American voices and of attempts to reclaim those lost stories, to remember and to honor them. We cannot forget the fact that Indigenous Peoples’ Day is also called Columbus Day. We can, however, choose to magnify indigenous voices speaking out across the centuries, shifting the stories we tell about the land we walk on.
So this weekend, consider taking a moment to honor indigenous voices by reading the work of one of these authors.
In the last decade, Diaz has produced two poetry collections, one of which (Postcolonial Love Poem, 2020) has won the Pulitzer Prize. Diaz is Mojave, an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community, and much of her poetry grapples with Native histories and identities, including how to cope today with the effects of colonization. When My Brother Was an Aztec (2012) includes several readily accessible poems to sit with this long weekend, or you could find her full-length collection, Postcolonial Love Poem, here. Diaz is currently working to revitalize the endangered language of Mojave near her home in Mohave Valley, Arizona.
Long Soldier's poetry has been characterized by an interviewer as inspiring "self-searching and tenderness" even as it explores historical traumas and contemporary narratives, presenting both "the wound of the world we are, and its healing" (Eleni Sikelianos). Most recently, Long Soldier's full-length poetry collection WHEREAS (2017) responds to the language the US government has used and has continued to use against Native American peoples and tribes. The collection was a finalist for the National Book Awards. Long Soldier is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, a dual citizen of the United States and of the Oglala Lakota nation.
The New York Times book review of Tommy Orange's debut novel There, There (2018) is titled, “Yes, Tommy Orange’s New Novel Really Is That Good.” It won the 2019 American Book Award and was nominated for the Pulitzer. Reviewers have called it “quietly devastating” and applauded its sophisticated engagement with place, myth, and belonging. Orange is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma, and he received his MFA from (and currently teaches at) the Institute of American Indian Arts.
Looking for more weekend reading recommendations from indigenous authors? Here are some more suggestions from Audible. Happy reading!
