Native Nonfiction November

I already love soup, especially around this time of year. The addition of corn dumplings makes my southern heart sing. The history of the three sisters — corn, beans, and squash — also holds a special place in Indigenous histories. I haven’t made this yet, but judging by the ingredients, it seems like it’ll have a slight chili taste. Well, actually just judging by the cumin because cumin very easily makes everything taste like chili to me. Follow the recipe here.

You may have heard of the botanist/author Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, a book in which she extols the virtues of looking to plants and animals as teachers, a traditionally Potawatomi Nation perspective. This young adult version does the same thing, just in a way that is more accessible to younger readers (plus there are illustrations!).

Whew, what an intense story Terese packed into a mere 143 pages! After reading this memoir, I almost feel like I can call the author by her first name. Her writing was so personal and raw, after finishing the book, I felt like we needed to go get drinks somewhere and decompress. She talks about growing up on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the PNW, her PTSD and bipolar II diagnoses, her problematic relationship, and childhood abuse. Her writing was poetic, fluid, and pulled no punches. Y’all aren’t ready.

The encampment at Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota grew into the largest Indigenous protest movement of the century. In Our History Is the Future, Estes chronicles the history of Indigenous protest that led to standing Rock, and what it might lead to in the future.

Justice speaks on the states of Indigenous literature and Indigenous literature studies, and how necessary they are in dismantling a culture of colonialism. Indigenous writers do this by asking existential and interpersonal questions, and by doing so, challenge colonialist policies that have driven wedges between Indigenous people and their connections to each other and the land.