Alma perdido

Certain ancestors carry stories that fascinate me. Estafana Real, whom I wrote about in "They Were Tough, Those Old Women: The Power of Gossip in Isabel Meadows' Narratives," continues to draw me back to her again and again. Recently, I discovered another Estefana story: in April of 1868, at the age of “57” (actually, 59), Estefana Real married a man named Ricardo Preciado, who is listed on the marriage record as 30 years old.

Previously, Estefana had married a man named Mendoza, and had many children with him (and some by other men). Next she is married to Juan Acedo, with whom she had the “joto”Victor Acedo. At some point, she married Joaquin Gutierrez, a Chileño, perhaps in hopes that marriage to a “European” would help her hold onto El Potrero.  Now I find she married Preciado late in life; although divorce was practically unheard of, and certainly not available to the poor, serial bigamy was common in California in the early days – not just between Indians, but Euro-Americans as well, many of whom found the lack of organized record-keeping convenient. Despite the Roman Catholic Church’s extensive written marriage records, still another RC priest presided over Estefana’s third (and last?) bigamist event – Father Michael Rocca. Ironically, this kind of easy marriage/remarriage, common in pre-contact tribes of the area, was one of the key factors the missionaries cited as evidence that Indians needed civilization lessons; it "proved" that colonization and missionization were not just necessary for Indians, but an ethical imperative for Euro-Americans! 

Thinking Preciado might be a way to trace the latter years of Estefana’s life (he’s already an interesting marker of her resilience, perseverance, and ingenuity), I searched for him in the archives. He seems to have registered to vote in Monterey, but the dates are wide there – 1867-1898. He has a mark next to his name that translates to “[naturalized] by treaty with Mexico,” so perhaps Estefana was not a citizenship marriage. I mention the possibility because it's difficult to imagine what benefit a legal marriage would give either party in a time and place where common-law relationships were quite widespread, and which Estefana, at least, had already experienced.

Like most Indian women of this time period, I’m certain Estefana married for reasons of survival rather than romance; romance was for the very young, and a brief, if that, privilege. Once a woman had a child, she was at the mercy of any man who would help her support that child; as an older woman, at nearly 60 years old, Estefana was past child-bearing age, and had shed her many children (some of them were raised by other women, relatives or families who took a child in as a servant – such was Victor Acedo’s case). But while she was finished raising a family, now she had to look after her own, elderly, self. What did she have to offer a 30-year-old man from Mexico? Perhaps citizenship in exchange for a cash payment, or bartered items? Perhaps she’d hung onto some money left over from her time at El Potrero? Shared housing? 

Isabel Meadows notes that Estefana had “mucho maridos,” but she never mentioned Preciado. This seems to imply that Preciado was not a significant relationship for Estefana; although it’s true that Isabel was only 28 at the time of Estefana’s marriage to Preciado, Isabel had much knowledge about Estefana’s other, earlier partnerships. Why didn’t Isabel remember this one?

Interestingly, Preciado’s marriage to Estefana seems to be the only record he left behind. Even his death is hard to locate. This could be him – it’s in the general geographical area - if he had lived to be 85:

But that’s a slim chance, not really enough data to make a firm statement. And I can’t find anymore. 

Ricardo Preciado is another one of those sad mysteries: a human being whose life came and went, without leaving more than a name on an odd marriage record, voting registration of an indeterminate year, and a “maybe” death record. He was born in Mexico, around 1838, but there are no baptismal records that I can find; he came from nowhere, and went nowhere. All I know is that he married my 4x great-aunt, who was twice his age. Was he kind? Was he cruel? Did he leave behind loved ones in Mexico? What state was he from? Did he speak English, Spanish, an Indigenous language? Who loved him? Whom did he love? What happened to him? 

We can't know any of this. He’s part of the crumbling past now, his flesh fed on by darkness and roots, time and the many-legged creatures of the earth’s remaking. A small blessing on your soul, Ricardo. I don’t know you well enough to remember you, or memorialize you, but I see you. I see you.

Tupelo Press Anthology Launch!

www.tupelopress.org

Okay, so I'm just about a month late with this post. The AWP 2019 in Portland was the site of not one, but TWO great gatherings to celebrate and discuss this new anthology, Native Voices: Indigenous American Poetry, Craft and Conversation from Tupelo Press. I was excited to be asked by Tupelo to be part of both gatherings, and arrived in Portland in plenty of time to prepare.

Unfortunately, due to a combination of cross-country travel, memory issues and various other little gremlins, I not only missed the AWP panel for anthology authors, but also the reading later in the afternoon. There are no words for the horror that I felt when I realized this mistake. A month later, I'm still feeling it. 😱

Still, we live in a time when people can be in two places at the same time, right? We have Skype and Face Time and all the other fun things give us powers we never would have dreamed of just a ten or twenty years ago.  So I've decided to do a bit of time-traveling, and go back to do the job right.

I know. It's not quite the same thing. There's something very special about the energy created when writers and an audience come together to share literature. Energy is generated, too, by the encounter. But I also want to give something back to the organizers of the AWP events, to the co-panelists and readers who were left in the lurch, and to the anthology itself, which deserves more PR.

Along with my video, I'd like to throw out a challenge to other Native Voices authors - post a video of yourself reading from the book! Maybe we can even get a Youtube channel dedicated to a collection of such videos??

A word about the book's focus: this is not only a collection of Indigenous poetry, but a conversation about craft. Specifically, each participant was given the task of identifying another author - Native or non-Native - whose own work had influenced our own. We each chose one poem from that author, along with a few of our own that seemed to resonate with that inspiration, and then wrote an accompanying essay, a kind of conversation with that poet and their work, and our work. 

Native Voices is really the first of its kind of Native writers, and the results are stunning. Reading each author's section is like having that writer all to yourself for a stimulating discussion of Native writing, our perspectives, what we love, who our heroes are, why we write, how we strive to be better, and most of all, the generosity of other writers in our lives.

Want to whet your appetite? Just browse this table of contents!  Folks, it's seven. pages. long. The book blurb lists just a few: 

Featuring forty-four poets, including Ishmael Hope, Bojan Louis, Ruby Murray, Simon Ortiz, Leslie Marmon Silko, Luci Tapahonso, Joy Harjo, dg okpik, Sherwin Bitsui, Heid E. Erdrich, Layli Long Soldier, and Orlando White.

Original influence essays by Diane Glancy on Lorca, Chrystos on Audre Lorde, Louise Erdrich on Elizabeth Bishop, LeAnne Howe on W. D. Snodgrass, Allison Hedge Coke on Delmore Schwartz, Suzanne Rancourt on Ai, and M. L. Smoker on Richard Hugo, among others.

This is a massive undertaking, and editors CMarie Fuhrman and Dean Rader have created a text that raises the bar on anthologies in general, let alone anthologies that provide context and craft behind Indigenous literatures.

Okay. Without any more ado, here is my contribution (click video link below the photo at the end of this blog). I didn't read all my poems (leaving something for readers to find) but I did talk a little about my essay describing my encounter with Wendy Rose's poem, "Excavation at Santa Barbara Mission," -- an encounter that I still carry with me (thank you, Wendy! 💕).  

I hope you enjoy my apology, and this anthology.

(click ↓)

Deborah Miranda Tupelo Press Anthology Reading

"First" Encounters

Dear journalists phoning and emailing for comments: Please consider this my official statement on Nathan Phillips and the Covington Catholic High School male students.

I’m sorry, I teach all day and don’t have time for a live interview.

I can say, however, that after careful viewing of all the videos currently online that show the encounter between Phillips, the Black Israelites, and the mostly-white Catholic high school students there for a "Pro-Life March" (if you need my thoughts on that, please read Ursula K. Le Guin's brilliant essay), this is what I’m thinking: the only adult human in those videos is Nathan Phillips.

A friend once told me, when a situation is chaotic, and language is confusing, look at the basics: actions. Who is doing what? 

Looking at those videos, I see four Black Israelites insulting both what appears to be about 30 Catholic students and the small group of 3-5 Indigenous people/allies. Then I see the Catholic students crowding around an elderly Indian man in street clothes and glasses, who is beating a hand drum and vocalizing song or his own language (both, probably). I see the Catholic students jumping up and down, some doing the Tomahawk-Chop from a pro football team, one boy stripping off his shirt and doing some kind of dance (later I heard these are school spirit chants), others “singing along” without knowing what they were singing, while doing the Tomahawk-chop, clapping to the beat of the drum, asking each other “what is going on?” and making a lot of loud noises that are obnoxious, rather than afraid (shouts, screams, chants). At one point, I see two blond women also dancing and chopping with the students – since this is a boy’s group, and the women are older, it seems likely that they are parent chaperones or teachers. Another video shows a glimpse of a man with a priest’s collar in the back, observing. I see that the young man in the MAGA hat who engages Phillips with his gaze has plenty of room to move back or sideways. I see that Phillips could turn and walk away. I see that he has a handful of supporters – maybe four.

What I don’t see? I don’t see any frightened children. I don’t see any children crying, running away, shielding themselves from threats, or acting fearful for their well-being. Instead, they appear to be crowding closer to Phillips – curious yet clueless. I see the beginning of a mob. What I see is a juvenile version of a Donald Trump rally in which protestors or even allies of a different color are heckled or kicked out of the auditorium.

This is how it always starts. This is why Native Americans are concerned about being told, "You started it."

Here is what I also see: that the children in these videos have absolutely no true representations of Native Americans in their heads to prepare them in any way for this moment. They possess no point of reference for what an Indian person is, other than howling stereotypes from Westerns, Indian sports mascots, bloody video games, and outdated novels or textbooks. They probably have never met an Indigenous person, let along spoken to one, or heard Indigenous music or prayers sung.  Perhaps to these students, “Indian” means mascot, casino, vanishing, savage. Their “responses” strike me as that of very young, confused children -- but minus any respect a child typically gives adults.

Strangely, I am reminded of the ways Europeans responded to Indigenous peoples at first contact – unable to image the Other as a human being with language, religion, feelings, intentions, or dignity.  And so, like early Catholics in the “New World,” the school children impose their own standards on Phillips, and in their wild gesticulations, find the Indian man to be laughable, suitable for mocking. This is certainly the framework with which Spanish Catholic explorers, priests and soldiers responded to meeting my ancestors, the Esselen and Chumash peoples who were missionized in Southern California from 1769-1835. The Spaniards were absolutely certain that their worldview and belief systems were the only way with which to live in the world, and left no room left for negotiation or conversation. What followed was a brutal attempt to literally beat “bad” Indians into good Catholic laborers and servants, and a drop in Indigenous population in what we currently call California – from over one million people at first contact in 1769 to less than 20,000 people by 1900.

In short, I see a group of children who have been failed by their educators, their parents, and their role models. Because unlike the original “First Encounters” in North America, these children – in 2019 – don’t have the (questionable) excuse of ignorance. Evidently, their parents and teachers were never educated in the history of Indigenous peoples, on whose land they stood, either. Evidently, they too never learned the etiquette of engaging with someone whose looks, language, religion, or worldview are different than theirs – let alone consider that these differences may actually be just as valuable as their own. I say “evidently,” because the evidence in these videos – all of them – should cause the parents and educators of these children to wince in shame. Instead, I see the young man who locked gazes with Phillips release a statement saying, “perhaps a group of adults was trying to provoke a group of teenagers into a larger conflict." 

That student is a young male, white, a member of the dominant culture in this country (and a culture that has long been dominant, a culture which has historically enslaved some, appropriated the land of others, and required laws passed in order to extend human rights) and goes to a private school with a steep tuition. Phillips is male, Indian in a country where the dominant culture has historically mistreated Indians – please look up Indian Boarding Schools – elderly, and physically frail.

If that student felt threatened, we all need to ask ourselves why that delusion seems to be stuck in his head – and in the heads of the so-called adults raising him. Because it is a delusion. It is inexcusably ignorant. And I will give the young man’s school and parents that much credit – he is far too smart not to know that.

Sincerely,

Deborah A. Miranda

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"Writing Down Your Demons" Poetry Workshop

Writing Down the Demons with Deborah Miranda

Date(s): Thursday, February 21, 2019, 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Location: Piper Writers House, 450 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281 (view map)
Type(s): Advanced Workshop, Generative Workshop, Workshop
Genre and Form(s): Poetry
Tags: Revision, Beauty, Grief, Climate Change, Politics, Healing

Cost: 

$149 Regular*, $119 Student

Register for this Workshop

 

Register for the Conference

About the Class

How do we summon creative power in the face of our personal and/or global demons? How can we speak of beauty when our world seems full of loss, grief, climate change, and political turmoil?  Thich Nhat Hanh says that the work of meditation is to transform “compost into flowers”; that is also the work of poetry.  This generative workshop will help you to re-see your demons as a form of poetic compost. Writing poetry is a way for us to name, explore and re-shape our demons and use them to grow something beautiful, powerful, and healing. Through in-class writing exercises, reading and discussing sample poems, as well as the plain old blood, sweat and tears of revision, this workshop is structured to inspire as well as provide you with new tools to continue the work on your own afterwards.  Please bring your favorite writing materials.

*While this workshop is open to the public, Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference attendees receive $25 off advanced workshops. To receive the discount, register for the conference.

Other workshops I'll be teaching at this conference:

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Writers Relationship to Reading
Tara Ison, Deborah Miranda, Patricia Colleen Murphy

Friday, February 22, 2019, 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

Location: Carson Ballroom, Old Main
Type: Panel
Genre:

Learn More about this Session

More information about this session is coming soon.

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Creating a Mixed-Genre Family Memoir
Deborah Miranda

Saturday, February 23, 2019, 10:15 a.m. - 11:15 a.m.

Location: Heritage, University Club
Type: Presentation
Genre: Creative Nonfiction, Experimental, Fiction, Hybrid, Memoir, Mixed Genre, Multi-genre, Poetry, Research, Short Stories

Learn More about this Session

This session will demonstrate ways to create richly layered memoir via multiple genres and visual storytelling. Our lives and those of our ancestors leave traces in the human archive that include much more than photographs. Documents like immigration records, religious institutions, letters, newspaper clippings, government forms, song lyrics, even fingerprints, prison records, school assignments, local histories or ethnographic notes—can all be “mined” for creative inspiration, expanding and enriching the narrative of your family.

Meet Your Instructor: Deborah Miranda

Deborah Miranda

Deborah A. Miranda is an enrolled member of the Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen.  Her mixed-genre book Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir, received the PEN-Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award, a Gold Medal from the Independent Publishers Association, and was short-listed for the William Saroyan Literary Award.  Her most recent poetry collection is Raised by Humans; previous collections include The Zen of La Llorona and Indian Cartography. Altar for Broken Things, a new poetry collection, will be published in 2019 from BkMk Press. Miranda is Professor of English at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia where she teaches literature and creative writing.