>> Jennifer Widman:
Hello, everyone,
and welcome to Untold
Stories of the West
which features four authors
whose work gives us new insight
into who really lives
in the American West
and what their stories are.
I'm Jennifer Widman of the South
Dakota Center for the Book.
The State Center is an
affiliate of the Library
of Congress Center for the Book
in Washington D.C. Our mission
is to promote books, reading,
libraries of literacy
with a special emphasis
on promoting the
unique literary heritage
of each state or territory.
The authors in this video are
from the Western two
region of the United States.
Their books were chosen by the
affiliated Centers for the Book
from their states to represent
their states literary heritage.
These so-called Great Reads
from great places
are chosen every year
by the affiliate centers, and
you can see the entire list
from this year and
preceding years
at www.read.gov/greatreads.
The authors participating
today are Kali Fajardo-Anstine,
author of Woman of Light,
representing Colorado.
Sarah Vogel, author of
The Farmer's Lawyer,
representing North Dakota.
Nick Estes, author of Our
History is the Future,
representing South Dakota.
And Jonathan Bailey, author
of When I was Red Clay
representing Utah.
These authors are here with
us to discuss their work,
and they will also
address the theme
of this year's National
Book Festival,
Books Bring Us Together.
I hope you'll enjoy
this conversation
and consider listening
to all the authors
in these Great Reads videos.
Together they are a testament
to the richness and diversity
of this nation's
literary creativity.
So thank you all
for being with us.
I am going to start
by having each
of our four authors introduce
themselves very briefly,
kind of your elevator pitch,
and just give us a two
or three sentence summary
of the book that's being
featured here today.
And I know that's a
tall order in many ways.
But just to kind of give
us an idea of who you are
and what your featured
book is about.
And Kali, I believe I'm going
to go in alphabetical order
by states right now, so
Kali, I'll start with you.
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
Great, thanks, Jennifer.
Well, I'm excited to be here.
Thank you to my fellow
panelists.
My name is Kali Fajardo-Anstine,
and I am the author of Sabrina
and Corina the short
story collection
that was published in 2019.
It was nominated for
the National Book Award
and won an American Book Award.
And I am here to discuss my
debut novel, Woman of Light.
And Woman of Light is an
intergenerational story
that spans 1868 to 1934 in
what we now call Colorado.
And it's based on
the oral tradition
of my own ancestors in Denver.
>> Jennifer Widman:
Thank you, Kali.
And then we'll move along
to North Dakota represented
by Sarah Vogel.
So Sarah, you can unmute
yourself and share.
>> Sarah Vogel: Hi, everybody,
and thank you very much,
Jennifer, and I'm grateful
to be nominated for this.
My book is called The Farmer's
Lawyer, and it's about a case
that I brought in the 1980s
that started with just a handful
of farmers who were
facing foreclosure
and basically being
starved off their farms
by the Federal Government.
And it ended with a national
class action covering 245,000
farmers and saved tens of
thousands from foreclosure.
And it was my first case.
And this is the book
about my clients who,
they became called
the North Dakota Nine.
And the law, a lot of
history of North Dakota.
North Dakota's nonpartisan
league, and it's a,
I like to think of it as
a true legal thriller.
It even has an endorsement
by John Grisham.
>> Jennifer Widman: Yes indeed.
In fact, it also
has an endorsement,
if I remember correctly,
by Willie Nelson.
Is that right?
>> Sarah Vogel: Absolutely.
>> Jennifer Widman:
That's quite a broad range
of endorsements for a book.
So, alright, thank you, Sarah.
An then Nick, we'll turn to you.
Nick from South Dakota.
>> Nick Estes: [Inaudible].
My name is Nick Estes, and
I am an enrolled member
of the Lower Brule Sioux
Tribe, and I'm talking today
about my book Our
History is the Future,
which won a PEN Oakland Award
and, you know, very grateful
to have received this
recognition for this book.
Part of the Oak Lake Writers'
Society and I believe a lot
of my work is influenced
and derivative
from the long traditions
of oral histories
from the Oceti Sakowin, Lakota,
Nakota and Dakota people,
as well as, you know,
traditions of Native literatures
that have existed, you
know, prior to this country
and continue to exist
and thrive today.
>> Jennifer Widman:
Alright, thank you, Nick.
And last, but of course
not least, Jonathan,
would you do the honors?
>> Jonathan T. Bailey: Yeah.
I'm Jonathan Bailey.
This book isn't released yet,
but this is about ex-Mormon
issues, LGBTQ issues
and wilderness and how that
tends to heal the other aspects
of life in rural Utah.
My work is primarily as a
conversation photographer,
so I spend a lot of time
in very remote areas.
But this is an extension
of what I usually do.
>> Jennifer Widman:
Alright, wonderful.
Well, thanks to all of you
for those introductions.
It's good to have a better sense
of who you are even though
I know we're just scratching
the surface.
Given the theme of our panel
today that I'm told stories
of the West, I'd like to start
with exactly that question.
And that is, in what
way do you feel
that your book is sharing some
stories that have been untold
or stories that perhaps
complicate the popular
understanding of
the American West.
And I think I'm going to go
through in about the same order.
So, untold stories,
how does your book fit
into that theme, Kali.
I'll have you go first.
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine: Thanks.
Well, I think it's a
pretty complicated title,
untold to whom.
My stories have been told,
and they have been
told for generations.
And they were the stories that
first formed my world view.
So I grew up in a large family,
mixed Chicano people, Filipino,
my great-grandfather
from the Philippines,
a grandmother who's Jewish.
And my great-grandmother, her
mother was Picuris Pueblo.
And so our stories were
very much told extensively
within our communities.
And I believe that
publishing has really sort
of upheld certain kinds of
stories that play into sort
of mythology that doesn't
necessarily reflect many,
many of our lives in the West,
in what we call the West.
Because essentially, this is
the center of my universe.
But Woman of Light,
it follows Luz Lopez.
She's a tea leaf reader
in 1933 in Denver.
And she's directly based on my
Auntie Lucy who migrated North
from Southern Colorado
in the 1920s.
Her father was a Belgian miner
who never married their mother
and abandoned the family and
essentially left them for dead.
But they are survivors,
and they're incredibly
powerful people that prevailed.
And I wanted to merge my two
interests which were listening
to these family stories,
hearing these incredible stories
and literature.
I grew up reading books.
I worked as a book
seller for over 15 years.
My degrees are in literature.
My MFA in creative writing.
And I wanted to sort of
merge those two interests
and bring them together
in my works.
And both Sabrina and
Corina and Woman of Light,
I believe, are doing that.
>> Jennifer Widman:
Alright, thank you, Kali.
Sarah, similar question to you.
In what ways do you feel
like you are telling
perhaps untold stories?
>> Sarah Vogel: I think the
stories I tell in my book are
about a little known
political party
that started roughly
100 years ago
in North Dakota called
the Nonpartisan League.
And the Nonpartisan
League believed
that government should be
in the hands of the people,
and they believed
that corporations should not be
allowed to extract and exploit,
extract wealth from the
people and exploit them.
And the government was there
to benefit the people
in very direct ways.
And so they set up
a state-owned bank.
They set up a state mill
and elevator which is still
in business 100 years to date.
Even though North Dakota
is currently a red state,
we also have a socialist bank
and a socialist mill
and elevator.
And part of their work was in
the 1930s when the times are
so tough and the Great
Depression and farms all
over the country
were going down.
And the Nonpartisan League
leaders had created a suite
of remedies amongst which were
a foreclosure moratorium issued
by gubernatorial proclamation.
So this is the religion.
I wouldn't even, in my family,
it wasn't a political party.
It was a religion.
And I grew up hearing stories
about the foreclosure moratorium
and how it saved farmers.
And so I became a lawyer.
I came back to North Dakota,
started working for farmers.
And as these famers
came to me with stories
of being pushed off
their farms by an agency
of the Federal Government that
was supposed to be helping them,
it was like everything
kicked in for me.
And I felt I had to
help these farmers.
I had to save them.
So I, long story short, and
it is a bit of a long book.
A lot of footnotes.
But it does read well.
But so I think that
definitely influenced me.
And I think it, I'm really
happy I can tell the story
of the Nonpartisan League,
because I think politicians
today should act more
like the Nonpartisan League
and protect the people
not the corporations.
>> Jennifer Widman:
Alright, thank you, Sarah.
And Nick, on to you,
the untold stories.
>> Nick Estes: Yeah, so this
book begins in the context
of the Standing Rock protests
against the Dakota
pipeline in North Dakota.
But it's really chronicling
two centuries
of Oceti Sakowin resistance
to White incursion
into our territories.
And so it would seem like
a familiar story, I think,
to people who live
in North Dakota
and South Dakota
and in the West.
Itself, you know,
understanding things
such as the Wounded Knee
massacre or like the, you know,
the occupation of
Wounded Knee in 1973
or more contemporarily
the Standing Rock protest.
But within that, there's kind
of a parochialism in the sense
that we are, we tend to be
defined by the region itself
and kind of thought of
just as domestic subjects.
But what I document
in this book,
especially in the 20th century,
is the profound internationalism
of the Oceti Sakowin going back
to people such as Zitkala-Sa
or Gertrude Bonnin who was
a Yankton poet and part
of our literary tradition
who, you know,
was boarding school educated
but nonetheless understood
the importance of something
like the League of Nations
and indigenous people
in North America's place there.
And also, you know, figures
such as Charles Eastman going
to the World Congress on Races
in 1911 with W. E. B. Du Bois
as part of the society
of American Indians.
You know, he himself running
from the genocidal
campaigns known as the Columns
of Vengeance coming out of
Minnesota and culminating
in the massacre at White
Stone Hill and, you know,
in 1863 during the US Civil War,
it's a massacre that, you know,
even the army itself
doesn't really recognize.
It doesn't have the
same kind of, you know,
recognition as like Sand
Creek or Wounded Knee.
But nonetheless, that's
what I try to document
in this history is to show
the profound presentism
of this history and also
the future oriented project
of indigenous existence that
isn't fundamentally antagonistic
to the people who live on
the land but shows, I think,
much like Sarah and Kali's book,
an alternative vision of what,
you know, what, you
know, justice looks
like amongst all people.
Especially as it relates to
the land and the water itself.
>> Jennifer Widman:
Alright, thank you, Nick.
And Jonathan, what kind
of untold stories are
you sharing in your work?
>> Jonathan T. Bailey: So the
community where I grew up is
about 1,000 people and
very, very not diverse.
There's like 90, well
over 90% is White.
Over 80% is Mormon.
And so you get this
narrative of pioneer history,
and you get this narrative
of Mormon history at large.
But nobody has ever explained
that there's actually a
queer history happening
in these very small
communities of Utah.
So you know, growing
up, even like well
into my teens I didn't even
know that queer people existed.
And so my objective
with Red Clay was
to introduce not only a
queer history of the region
but also introduce that
these are things that,
this environment enhances
the queer experience in that,
you know, you have wilderness
and you have an escape
to this traditionally
very rural,
very conservative community.
>> Jennifer Widman:
Alright, thank you, Jonathan.
And thank you all
for indulging us
in that untold stories question.
I appreciate all
of your answers.
Because several of you brought
up some of the importance
of the land, and I think every
single one of your books,
and they're a diverse
group of books.
We have Kali's is a novel.
Jonathan's is very much
a memoir with a lot
of different essayistic
descriptive passages.
Sarah and Nick, you're
both historians
but with a very deep
personal connection
to what you're looking at and
aspects of memoir in all of it.
So we have a variety of
things going on here,
but one of the things I do
think ties them together is the
strength of the sense
of place that comes
through in the writing
regardless
of whether it's fiction or
nonfiction or something else,
if there is a something else.
And so I wondered if each of
you could speak a little bit
about in what ways is connection
to the landscape, the philosophy
of the sense of place important
to the story that
you're telling.
And maybe to mix it up, I'm
going to jump ahead and start
with Sarah with this
time and come around
and get to you all that way.
So, Sarah, what about the sense
of place and the connection
to the landscape is
important in your work?
>> Sarah Vogel: Well, my
book is mostly about farmers
and ranchers who are deeply
and inextricably connected
to their land, sometimes
multigenerational.
But the one I would
like to focus on is
as I was developing the case and
many farmers were coming to me
and selecting people to
be the North Dakota Nine,
I still did not have a Native
American farmer and rancher.
And I thought if the Federal
Government was discriminating
against White, often Republican,
farmers and ranchers,
they were treating Native
Americans no doubt abysmally.
And this was certainly the case.
And so I put the word
out that I wanted
to have a Native
American lead plaintiff.
And I got a call from
Lester Crowsheart
of the Fort Berthold Nation.
And Lester hadn't just been
on his land for generations.
His people had been
on the bottom lands
of the Missouri River for
probably thousands of years.
And I put in a lot about
how their land was flooded
by the Garrison Dam.
But still, they were
farmers and ranchers,
and they were sticking to it.
And I remember Lester saying,
and by that point they had come
and ceased his cattle,
his machinery,
everything he owned probably,
all the means of farming.
But he said they
cannot have my land.
And so he was the
lead plaintiff,
and he and Sharon Crowsheart
were lead plaintiffs.
And they still have their land.
And I, and then this led me
to volunteering to be one
of the lawyers, a big
discrimination case filed
in 1999 that I worked
on for close
to 20 years called
Keepseagle versus Vilsack.
And that dealt with
discrimination
by the same agency against
all Native Americans all
over the country.
And we ended up getting
a ton of money,
and a lot of claims were paid
and a lot of debt was forgiven.
And the leftover money following
the Native American Agriculture
Fund which is out doing
fabulous work these days.
So I'm just really happy
that that story can be told.
Because Native Americans
were farmers
and ranchers long before
the settlement period.
>> Jennifer Widman: Alright,
well thank you, Sarah.
And that actually probably
segues pretty nicely
into what some of Nick can
talk about in terms of sense
of place, although
much broader as well.
But an entire chapter of your
book is devoted to the damming
of the Missouri River and
the damage that caused.
But just in general, the
connection to landscape
and the philosophy behind
that is a really central
part of your book.
>> Nick Estes: Yeah, I
think just to kind of speak
to the question of dams.
I mean the Army Corps of
Engineers was the kind
of overarching agency in charge
of doing the environmental
impact, you know,
surveys for the Dakota
Access Pipeline.
And in fact, the original route
went up river from Bismarck,
but then the Army Corps
of Engineers rerouted it
to protect a wetlands but
also this high concentration
of residential area.
And rerouted it downriver to,
so then it would
disproportionally impact the
Sitting Rock Indian Reservation.
So several things, one,
that the Army Corps
of Engineers was interested
in protecting the environment,
and two, that they did
a calculation of impact
and deciding that because
Bismarck didn't want it,
you know, above their city,
that they were going
to move it downriver.
Well, that's just the history
of the Army Corps of Engineers
and its philosophy
towards indigenous people
in the Missouri River Basin
in general that we, you know,
if you look at a map and
you look at where all
of the major dams
are on the river,
it's all on Indian reservations
and disproportionately impacting
and flooding Indian
reservations.
And to kind of give you an
idea of how this, you know,
plays into this question of
our relationship to the land,
one of the things that the
Army Corps of Engineers did,
you know, in conjunction
with the Bureau
of Indian Affairs is they did
these massive surveys of land.
Much like what Sarah was
talking about in terms
of calculating how
much, you know,
the cattle enterprise
would be destroyed.
I think there's a tendency to
think of Native people as kind
of existing outside of history.
And like, you know, we were
farmers and ranchers even,
you know, prior to colonization
and even during colonization.
In fact, the Missouri River
tribes became expert ranchers,
you know, and became
not a lucrative business
but a subsisting business.
A way that we made our
lives as well as, you know,
subsisting off of the land
itself in terms of, you know,
still getting what they termed
the wild fruits of nature
such as, you know, wild plums,
harvesting game, wildlife,
harvesting, you know, what they
call things such as mouse beans.
Well, when the Army Corps
of Engineers came in,
they calculated that those
dams would destroy 75%
of the game, the wild game.
It would disappear because of
lack of access to shelter lands
and the bottom lands because
it's the plains where,
only place where trees grow.
And it would also
destroy our cattle economy
and our small agricultural
economy.
It destroyed 90% of our
commercial timber as well.
So this took us from
a state of, you know,
it's not to glorify the
reservation period at all.
But at least we were subsistent.
And it took us from a state
of subsistence to a state
of complete dependence
in the 20th century.
This wasn't a 19th
century kind of thing.
And you saw diabetes
skyrocket on the reservation.
Prior to that, it was
relatively unknown.
So you have the forced
change of diet
but also the forced
dislocation to our connection
to this particular landscape.
And I think the phrase mni
wiconi, you know, it says a lot
about this idea that water
is our first medicine
because we're all born in water.
It's actually in one
of our constellations.
It's called Kamini [phonetic]
which means her water
or their water, which is our
Lakota word for placenta.
And that's, you know, that's
where our kind of esoteric,
you know, one could call it
spiritual knowledge comes from.
And I don't want to like
essentialize that viewpoint,
because at the end of the day
the argument that we were making
and still make to this day is
that we all drink
water, you know.
It's not like we have some
kind of special unique power
to drink more water
in a different way.
We all drink water.
And it sustains the
livelihood and the economies
on the Northern Plains.
So that's really the question
that we've been putting forward.
And it's not without a special,
you know, history or whatever,
but it's also to look back and
say like in the 1980s farmers
and ranchers allied with Lakota
and Dakota people over uranium
and coal mining in the
Black Hills region.
Because we all understood that
treaty rights were protecting,
you know, workers' rights to a
healthy environment as well as,
you know, ranchers and farmers
who needed groundwater and,
you know, clean river water.
So when we talk about mni
wiconi and the treaty rights,
it's something I think people
think of as an Indian problem.
But actually, it's
everyone's problem.
It's like your government
made these treaties with us,
and it's your obligation
to uphold that law as well.
>> Jennifer Widman:
Okay, thank you, Nick.
And Jonathan, the question of
connection to landscape sense
of place, that has obviously
been such an important part
of your work outside of
this forthcoming book.
Talk to us a little
bit about that.
>> Jonathan T. Bailey: Yeah,
so I grew up in an area
that was millions
of acres of land
that was virtually unexplored
to the Federal Government,
only 10% of which is
formally recorded.
So it was incredibly, I
was incredibly privileged
to see this landscape that, you
know, you can find new species
and new, you know, plants
and animals and springs
and water sources and all
of these amazing things
that to this day
remain unrecorded.
But for me, it was
always very important
that there was this
space outside
of the eyes of the community.
That there is this, you
know, you can't so much
as like buy medicine at a store
without like the entire
town knowing about it.
So like in terms of queer
history, it's so important
to have, you know,
an eyeless space
that you can just be yourselves,
and you can, you know,
hide and enjoy animals and
see all of these things
that many people haven't
seen for hundreds of years
if not thousands of years.
But you know, I think
that nature
in general has the potential to
teach all of us about, you know,
kindness in terms to ourselves
and to other people
in our community.
Because, you now, it shows
the priorities of being
with yourself, being with your
emotions and just realizing
that like work and schooling
and all of these things
that are important but aren't
necessarily what we take
to us when we die.
So like, you know, the last
moment we have is the moment we
spend remembering all
of the wonder we've
had with the universe.
So that's what I'd say.
>> Jennifer Widman: Great.
Wonderful.
Thank you, Jonathan.
And Kali, the sense of place,
the connection to landscape,
also very important
in your work.
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine: Yeah,
so I like to think of myself
as a placed person without the
patterns of migration and labor
that essentially built the West
and the way that we know it.
A human being like
me cannot exist.
So the layers upon
layers of my ancestry is
because of the natural
landscape,
beginning with my
indigenous ancestors.
And then you have new
waves of people coming in,
miners, field farmworkers.
So in Woman of Light, the reason
I'm exploring two different time
periods, the 1890s
and the 1930s,
is because I really
wanted to look
at the moment my ancestors
came from a rural West
and entered into the city.
And how the impacts of the
city really changed them.
One of the scenes that I'm
thinking of in the novel
that really sort of exemplifies
this idea of land and how
that imprints itself on the
psyche, Luz is remembering
when she's an eight year old
girl and she's first come
to the city with
her brother, Diego.
And their Auntie Maria Josie,
she is a butch lesbian.
She's a queer matriarch
of this novel.
She's based on my actual Auntie.
Maria Josie is telling
them it's really important
that you learn the
map so to speak.
You need to understand the
city as if it were the back
of your hand because these
people will try to harm you.
There is Ku Klux Klan picnics.
There's car races.
There's cross burnings.
And there's lynch mobs.
And these are actual threats
of violence that will harm you.
So you need to learn
your way around the city
as if it were the land.
And so Luz and Diego,
they're going through Denver.
It's the 1920s.
And they think they've
arrived in a safe neighborhood.
It's sort of a mixed
neighborhood.
There's Black-owned stores.
There's Greek-owned stores.
And suddenly a man drives by and
rolls down his window in a truck
and he tells them to go back
to their own country,
and he spits on Luz.
And in that moment,
I remember thinking
like when I wrote
the scene, you know,
like Luz is of this country.
This Luz created a
character like Luz.
This country created characters
like everyone in this novel.
But we're constantly told
that we don't belong here.
We don't have a space here.
And so in a lot of ways, I think
the way that I'm exploring land
in my work is I want to point
the eye to labor history,
to the history of colonization,
to the ways that this has been
layered and a lived experience
of the people who are
on top of the land.
Not necessarily looking
at the mountains
and thinking they're
so beautiful.
Let me write a long, gorgeous
passage about the beauty
of the mountains, which I do.
I love doing that.
But there's always sort of a
deeper purpose when I'm engaging
with the land in my work.
>> Jennifer Widman: Right.
That's great.
Thank you all for
talking about that.
Different landscapes
certainly for all of you.
But very important in all ways.
I'm going to move to a question
that has maybe a little bit more
to do with just the creation of
the books we're talking about.
And that is just what kind
of things can you tell us
about the research and
writing process for this book?
And in some cases,
maybe it's more research
and less inspiration.
Or in some cases maybe it's
more inspiration, less research.
But talk a little bit
about that process.
Where did it start,
and what kinds
of sources did you call on?
And I think, Nick, this
time I'll start with you.
>> Nick Estes: So this book
actually began 10 years ago
before Standing Rock
happened in 2016.
And it became sort of
a process of me trying
to just understand why, you
know, the river was flooded.
And it was, you know, like
this whole idea that we think
of like a term like
settler colonialism,
and they value indigenous land
to turn it into production,
to work it, to, you
know, make profit.
But they also value
indigenous land
because it can be destroyed.
And we are, you know, we're
the sacrifice of that.
And so even in the destruction
of our land it has value.
And this tied into all kinds
of things such as, you know,
my family's history
in boarding school.
I'm only one generation
removed, you know.
My dad went to one of the most
notorious boarding schools
in our area.
And, you know, where like
rampant reports of, you know,
violence and abuse happened.
So it actually began with
me trying to figure out why,
you know, those histories
became the way that they did
and the history of the town
I grew up in in Chamberlain.
So that's really where it became
like a family conversational
history.
And I started doing oral
histories when I was
in my master's program at the
University of South Dakota
and really dived into archive
research in like 2006, 2008.
And it was all just kind of
sitting there so to speak.
And then I had this fellowship
when I was, in 2016 in Chicago,
and I just got back from
the Standing Rock camps.
And I was like what am I doing?
I'm writing this
research project.
And so I abandoned my
dissertation at that time,
and I just went back
to Standing Rock.
And I was like I'm
going to write this book
because otherwise, you know,
I don't know how it's
going to get written.
So it's a mix of like interviews
that I've done on the ground.
You know, my own participation
in the protests themselves
but also really not
doing anything new.
And I think that there's a sense
of, you know, in this generation
that we have to do
something novel.
That we have to constantly
innovate.
But really, what I was doing,
and I talk about this, you know,
part of the title,
the long tradition
of indigenous resistance.
I'm drawing upon, you know, a
tradition, a literary tradition
and a tradition of storytelling.
And I'm not really
creating anything new.
I'm just retelling those
stories from the people
who have already, you
know, lived those things.
And so that's really what I
was trying to do is build kind
of on a tradition
mixing oral histories,
participant observation,
archival research,
as well as this broader
kind of literary tradition.
And the motivation for writing
it actually came from, you know,
writing to my high school
self, my 16 year old self,
who needed a book like this.
Going to Chamberlain High
School, not even knowing
that Native people wrote books.
So that's really my inspiration,
the audience and the person
that I was writing to
when I wrote this book.
>> Jennifer Widman:
Great, thanks, Nick.
Jonathan, we'll go to you
next with the same question.
The inspiration and the
sources for this book.
>> Jonathan T. Bailey: So when I
was writing Clay was definitely
started during the pandemic.
I was in this really
small apartment
that was very difficult to
leave during this time period
because of just the design
of the apartment complex.
So I was not getting
out in the wild.
I was not exploring
myself creatively.
And I think that led
first to literature
because I've written
a lot in the past.
Although my primary creative
outlet is photography.
And it also made me
contend with feelings
that I haven't really had to
deal with because I'm so often,
you know, on the
road and working,
and I don't frequently have
to think about my past.
Don't frequently have to think
about my Mormon upbringing.
So I started writing this.
And then, you know, I wanted
it to not only be authentic
to my current experience
but also be authentic
to my past experience.
So I started going through like
high school journals, notebooks.
Started going through
old family videos.
There's like seven
hours of family videos
that I was spanning through
trying to make sure I captured
who I was at the time also.
So it was a very broad
quarantine project you
could say.
>> Jennifer Widman: Great.
Well, it worked out well then.
It was a very, very
useful quarantine for you.
So, Kali, how about you.
The resources, the
inspiration, the research.
How did you combine all that?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
Of course.
So a lot of my inspiration
comes from the literature
that I was reading
as a teenager.
It was over a decade ago
that I decided that I wanted
to write Woman of Light.
And I wanted to offer
Chicanos like me that come
from these backgrounds that
are incredibly complicated.
I wanted sort of
an origin story.
Because a lot of our histories
had been wiped out of textbooks.
We didn't really
have an understanding
of a communal story.
A lot of the stories were
disbursed into different groups
under the umbrella
term of Latinx.
And I wanted something
that was speaking more
to the regional experience.
So I was really inspired by
writers like Tony Morrison,
especially Beloved, the
amount of research that went
into that novel and the
amount of emotional truth.
I'm thinking of writers
like Katherine Anne Porter,
Pale Horse Pale Rider
which is set
in Denver during the influenza
pandemic in the 1920s.
And just knowing
that I could sort
of wield this beautiful probe,
this very lovely
sounding language
that almost mimicked the
oral tradition of my elders.
The way that they use pauses
and silences and repetition.
All those rhythms, I wanted to
somehow capture that and put
that into the literary form.
With this novel being
set in the 1930s,
there was an extensive amount of
archival research that was done.
And that really began before
I wanted to be an author,
I wanted to be an archivist.
And I interned at the
National Institutes of Health
in Washington D.C.
and as an undergrad.
And I remember just filing and
filing records and being taught
about the record, the
cycle of termination
that we are actually
deleting records as a country.
We're hiding things on purpose.
We're destroying things.
And it was one of the
first times that I spoke
to a records expert
in the field of health
who knew something
about Colorado.
There was this incredible
researcher from Africa,
and he said you're from Denver.
He said have you ever heard
of this neighborhood
called Globeville.
I said yeah, that's where
I did Su Teatro as a kid.
I was in community
theater there.
And he said, there's
cancer clusters all
over that neighborhood
because of the poison of radium
and uranium that
happened and the process
that happened in that community.
I'm 21 years old, never knew
this about my own community,
about a place where I
had spent my summers.
And in Woman of Light, there
actually is radium mining.
And I tie that all back
to Marie Curie and Paris,
discovering the element.
And I just find research to
be this unending curious web
that fulfills my
hunger for knowledge.
And that is something also
that came from my elders.
>> Jennifer Widman: Wonderful,
yes, mixing very different kinds
of knowledge, as most
of you are doing.
So Sarah, that question as well.
I think I saw something about
how many boxes and boxes
of files that you went through
for something you also lived.
But tell you a little
bit about your research
and your writing process.
And make sure we get
you unmuted first.
>> Sarah Vogel: Yes.
The research was
a real challenge.
I did not keep a diary
or a journal during the
years I was litigating
and developing the
case or really ever.
But I am, and I was
then, a paper packrat.
I knew that what I was doing
at the time was significant,
and I saved everything.
I saved bills.
I saved notes.
I saved graphs.
I saved copies of regulations.
So that was the base
of the book.
And over the years, I was,
once I was on the verge
of throwing them out,
even though I knew it
was the best collection
of [inaudible] probably ever.
And our state archivists,
and I think archivists
are heroes, heroic people.
Anyway, this historian told
me to call the archivists,
and the archivists zipped
over, said I'll take them.
And so it ended up that there
are now 99 boxes of papers
from my work and so
forth in North Dakota.
And for this book, I think
it was parts of them,
but it was hard to
face, you know.
Because you kind of relive
things as you go through that.
So I had a lot of
emotions to work through.
Some of the people's files
I found I couldn't help,
which was still caused
a lot of pain.
It was also hard
to organize them
because my organizational
system for papers was
to sweep off the top of my desk
every time I moved into boxes.
And then they would
just go someplace.
Before I could write the
book, and the book is more
or less chronological,
I had to put them
into chronological order
and I had to index.
So that took years.
And then another challenge
I have is I had to get
over my legal writing style.
Legal writing style
is totally different
from any other writing.
And for example, lawyers and
their legal writing never,
ever use the word I, never,
ever going to the first person
unless they're in trouble
and somebody's accusing them
of malpractice or something.
But I had to change that,
which was pretty deeply set
in there to be a legal writer.
And then anyway.
It took a long time, probably
planning to get out of law
so that I could write
took a full year.
And then it was really
seven years of dinging
around with the papers
and organizing
and then the Keepseagle
case took a lot
of time in those years.
And then finally, I spent
close to three years writing
and rewriting and drafting
and leaving cutting.
And I delete a lot
of stories out,
but you can't put
everything into one book.
Anyway, it was my first book.
Maybe not my last.
We'll see.
>> Jennifer Widman:
That is wonderful.
Hopefully you all have more
work that will be coming.
Let's see, we've got maybe about
15 minutes or so left to talk.
So we'll get in one
more question
or maybe two if we can do that.
But I'd like to ask you
each to think about first,
what do you hope readers will
take away from your book?
What kinds of effects
would you like to have.
And of course, as an author
you can't control in any way.
But perhaps you have hopes.
So Jonathan, I'll
start with you.
What would be your hope
that readers would take
away from your book.
And you might think about do you
wish different audiences would
take different aspects of it?
>> Jonathan T. Bailey: Right.
For queer kids, I
hope that they realize
that there is a diverse
experience to be had.
Not only is, you know,
okay to be who you are,
but it's also okay to not
fall into any category
that you're expected
to fall into.
Because I know especially in
Utah you're expected to be
like stereotypical
or extremely Mormon.
And the reality is that you
can be whoever you want to be.
To Mormon readers I hope
that they find empathy
for a lot of people.
And just for the general reader,
I would hope that they realize
that there's a lot of, you know,
experiences that are being
had throughout this country
and rural communities that they
may not realize are happening
in this day and age.
They think we've made so
much progress, and we have,
but there is also, you know,
these communities that exist
in a bubble, and they're,
you know, many, many decades
in the past in many ways.
So I would hope that whoever
comes into this book they take
out of it what they
need most to, you know,
lead to a diverse
and happy community.
>> Jennifer Widman: Alright,
taking what they need most.
That's a wonderful thought.
So Kali, how about you?
What do you hope people
take from your book?
>> Kali Fajardo-Anstine:
You know, all of my work,
I really want the outcast in
all of us to feel more seen.
To feel that they have a
connection to characters.
Because as a reader, that was
one of the reasons I just plowed
through book after book is
because writers are sort
of speaking tot his
hidden part of myself.
The things that I
was ashamed of,
the acts that I was
embarrassed of.
You know, suddenly you're
reading To Kill a Mockingbird
and you realize oh my God,
I'm just like Atticus.
Like I also have these
things within me.
And so with my works, I
really want people to feel
like somehow they're
connecting across time and space
with characters who are
maybe just like them.
Because a lot of my readers do
come from my own background.
But I have readers all
over the world now.
I have readers from
Japan who write me,
and they tell me they really
identify with these women
and the violence in
their communities
and the trauma they've
gone through.
And to me, like that is the
ultimate power of literature.
I was very careful
with the wording
of the dedication
of Woman of Light.
It's not dedicated to Denver the
State, capital S. It's dedicated
to the people of Denver.
And that's the heart
of all of my work.
I very much felt lonely
through much of my life.
I spent a lot of my time
by myself reading
books or writing books.
And at the other
end of this journey,
I've now built a community,
and I'm continuing
to build a community.
And so really, that, I believe,
is the ultimate goal of all
of my books is that I'm building
something new that brings people
in who feel like they have
been pushed to the margins over
and over and over again.
And one of the most incredible
things that I think is happening
with my work is that
for some people,
this is their first
experience learning
about what we now
know is Colorado.
And before me, their experiences
may have been like old westerns,
John Wayne movies,
and now they're
like Kali Fajardo-Anstine's
like mine.
That's my first doorway
into Colorado.
And that's just something
that like my family could
have never dreamed possible.
So I just, I want
to embrace more
and more community with my work.
>> Jennifer Widman: Wonderful.
Sarah, same question for you.
What do you hope people
take away from your book?
>> Sarah Vogel: I think my
main purpose is for people
to appreciate family
farmers more
and understand the
importance of family farmers
to the environment, the air,
to the food, to our health,
to our communities,
to small towns,
to ethics, to proper government.
You know, it like all ties in.
So that would be one thing.
And by the way, a good way
to support family farmers is
to kick in money to farm aid.
Willie Nelson's been at it
since, you know, since the 80s.
And he's true blue, and
the money is well spent.
And so that's just a
simple donation for me,
that would be one thing.
And then another thing,
I hope that the government never
does anything like this again.
And I'm happy now that I
know this book is becoming
to be required reading
at the USDA
for people running
these programs.
Tomorrow, I'm going to go
to meet with the externs
of a federal judge because
they want these young lawyers
to learn what a young
lawyer could do.
You know, and obviously
I had a ton of help,
but I didn't know
I would have help.
When I started, the help came.
And so those are some of the
things I, there's a law firm
in Bismarck, the Broughton Law
Firm that carries on the kind
of work that I practiced
before I dropped
out to become a writer.
And a young lawyer read the
book and said, I want to be,
I want to do law like
that and called Derrick.
So like if I can influence young
lawyers to do this kind of law,
to represent real people,
that would be good too.
And then let the history, a lot
of the history be known that,
you know, that I think
is kind of forgotten.
Like there's a lot about the
30s and the programs started
by the FDR administration.
I've already mentioned
the Nonpartisan League,
history of Native
Americans and agriculture.
So but it's a legal thriller.
>> Jennifer Widman:
There you go, for sure.
And a true story.
Alright, Nick, how about you.
What would you say you would
like readers to take away,
and do you hope for different
things from different audiences?
Or is there one main message?
>> Nick Estes: Well, there
was a report that came
out last November that found
that Native-led movements
in Canada and the United States
are currently challenging a
quarter of carbon
emissions from both Canada
and the United States.
The largest per capita polluters
and emitters in the world.
So even though we're the
minority of minority,
we're punching way
above our weight class
in terms of challenging.
And protecting, you know, a
viable future on this planet
and water and air that
we all need to breathe.
So that's one aspect of it.
The other aspect is to look in,
really learn about the names
that are mentioned and
the sources that I use.
You know, there was a two spirit
camp in the Standing Rock camp,
which is actually one of the
leadership camps for LGBTQ
and two spirit people who
were leading the protest.
And, you know, when you Google
Lakota people or Dakota people
on the internet, oftentimes
you find tin-type photos of men
of the 19th century, right.
And really, you know, the names
such as Madonna Thunder Hawk,
Phyllis Young, Candy Brings
Plenty, Ladonna, you know,
Brave Bull Allard, Debra
White Plume, are the people
who are really leading
the camps themselves.
Also, Faith Spotted Eagle.
These are names that you should
know, And these are people
that you should do more research
on and you should reach out to
and invite to your
colleges, your universities,
your classrooms and
learn from them.
And then also, you should know
that our literary
tradition is very, you know,
very long and very storied.
My colleague Sarah Hernandez,
found that the Oceti Sakowin
authors have published
over 250 books, just
titles by our nation alone.
So you know, going back to
the Oak Lake Writer's Society,
this book would not have
been possible had it not been
for people such as Elizabeth
Cook-Lynn who is a Dakota writer
who was born and raised 20
miles north of where I was born
and raised and experienced much
of the similar history as me.
You know, of course, you know,
separated by like 60 years.
But nonetheless, you know,
same kind of tradition.
And that's really what I
think is most important.
It's like people want a
new kind of, you know,
we want the new Native author.
And it's like well, there
isn't just one of us.
We're, you now, we're
a chorus of people.
We're so diverse.
We're actually more diverse than
the nations that colonized us
in terms of our linguistic
diversity, our cultural,
spiritual and religious
and political diversity.
And I think that's a
testament to the kind of world
that we're trying to
build from this society
that we're trying
to build, you know.
A world in which
many worlds fit,
because that's what
sovereignty was about for us.
It was about recognizing
the strength and difference,
not in the strength and
uniformity or hegemony.
So that's one thing that I
really want to kind of get
across is just the diversity
of our stories and who we are
as Oceti Sakowin as the
original people of this land
but also the fact that
it's not just, you know,
our history in a singular sense.
It's many histories and
many different people.
And I just really hope
that this book, you know,
you pick this book up and
it opens doors for you
to do more research and
to understand, you know,
that not only is my book the
only book, there's other books
out there, and there's
other voices out there.
And I'm just, you know, one as
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn told me,
she said you don't
even own your own life.
You're just here to ensure the
coming of the next generation.
And I think that's really
the philosophy that I've had
in terms of writing this book.
>> Jennifer Widman: Thank you.
Yes, thank you all.
I like being referred to this as
not just one voice but a chorus,
but I think you all are a bit
of a chorus today with lots
of diverse viewpoints
and different ideas.
Well, we are coming to the end
of our time, and I just want
to thank you all again so
much for being with us today.
Thank you for sharing
your work with the world
and with the Great Reads
from Great Places list
through the Library of Congress.
I said at the beginning
that this is a testament
to the richness and diversity
of this nation's
literary creativity.
And I think it really is, and I
think you have proved it today.
So to Kali, Sarah,
Nick, Jonathon,
thank you for sharing
your words, and thank you
for sharing your time today.
And I can't wait to
see what you do next.
Thank you.
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