Last weekend I saw Smoke Signals for the second time, having viewed a delightful interview with Indigenous author and screenwriter Sherman Alexie by Bill Moyers earlier. It became apparent that Mr. Moyers was intrigued by Mr. Alexie's work, and as the interview progressed, it gave Mr. Alexie a chance to reflect on his work as an author and screenwriter, and how his history tied into the fiction he has created. It was fascinating to hear Mr. Alexie discuss his work with reference to his own inner conflicts and successes since he graduated from college and began writing. Mr. Alexie spoke a little about his personal history, and he said that when he first began writing, his belief was that he was writing fiction, although many readers and literary critics believed the stories he wrote had strong autobiographical overtones. Mr. Alexie, in looking back, said that he realizes now that his readers and reviewers were correct, that his early work did have strong autobiographical strands woven into it.
Mr. Alexie also confided to Mr. Moyers that he believed that he knew more about the White Man's world than Caucasians know about being Indigenous. He pointed out that Liberals love Indigenous people, and that it was a point of humor among many Indigenous people. I would agree, in that I am guilty of being liberal (progressive?) and have always been fond of Native Americans. My late sister, Susan, was of Picuris/San Ildefonso Pueblo heritage, and it sensitized me fairly quickly. Her daughter is my favorite niece. Growing up in the Southwest in New Mexico, I first had the experience of being a minority group member in the Espanola Valley Public Schools, and there were roughly three Anglos/Caucasians, at that time meaning Caucasians and African-Americans, for every 10 people of Latino or Indigenous ancestry. My father, an insightful man, had me learn Spanish from the age of 6, and my ability to speak it has been of lifelong help to me. I remember traveling through the South in the days of "Separate but Equal" with my mother, little sister, aged grandfather, and great aunt to Florida, and having to stay in motels catering to African American customers because my little sister, then just a baby, was very dark skinned. My parents, out of the kindness of their heart, had adopted both of us as babies. Those experiences, among others, gave me a lifelong sense of what it felt like to be different.
Growing up in my first 13 years in a multi-cultural community served me well throughout my career, especially in my counseling practice, because I was comfortable working with both Latinos and Indigenous clientele. In eighth grade, I went from a school system that was 80 percent Hispanic and Native American and 20 percent Anglo, to a school system that was 80 percent Anglo and 20 percent Hispanic and Indigenous. It took me a full year to acclimate, although the people of Los Alamos were very hospitable, and I made friends easily.
Which brings me back to Mr. Alexie, and his experience, which to some degree is the reverse of my sister's. My sister grew up some 5 miles from where her birth parents lived, and some of the people who worked with my father in the National Laboratory knew both her birth family and our family. My sister was raised as Anglo, but never was able to deny her Indigenous appearance or heritage. She had a good social experience in both school systems, but, having dyslexia, she did not benefit from school or find it to have the same positive rewards that I did. She fell in love with my niece's father, a member of San Juan Pueblo, and went to live in that pueblo. My mother spent some time trying to help my sister, but she did not want college, and slowly fell into bouts of intoxication. She was accepted by her husband's family at San Juan, and it became apparent that her husband's family also knew my sister's birth family.
Slowly, my sister began to accept her Indigenous heritage, and she made up her mind to seek the consent of her birth family to be allowed to register as a tribal member at San Ildefonso Pueblo. She met a few brothers from her birth family, and found out that she was a granddaughter of Maria Martinez, the famous San Ildefonso Pueblo re-discoverer of black on black pottery. When my mother and sister went to meet her birth parents, they were kind and cordial, and said they would do what they could to help her register in that tribe. I think my sister visited them at least three more times, but there was no action to help her register. The rejection devastated her, and seemed to maroon her between the Caucasian world of her adopted family and the Indigenous world of her husband and daughter, who were tribally registered in San Juan Pueblo. There were visits that I made and that my mother made to see her, and much of what we heard and saw was similar to what Sherman Alexie shared in Smoke Signals. The first time I went to visit, some of her husband's friends asked me what tribe I was from. I told them "Clan Scott, they named the country after us, you know, Scotland!" They said it was the first time a white man had understood the question. I felt like had passed a hazing. They went on to talk with me, and we had a good visit.
My sister's alcohol dependence turned into chemical dependence. Her husband immolated himself in the family home, and died an agonizing death in the University of New Mexico Hospital Burn Unit. My niece was fatherless. My sister's husband's death seemed to take the wind from her sails. She stopped caring for herself, and it was as if the combination of rejection by her birth family and her husband's death severed her attachment to the Indigenous world. She slowly became more and more chemically dependent, and I had to remove my mother from her own home to keep her from being physically abused and financially exploited by my sister and her opioid dependent boyfriend. The mortgage was foreclosed on my mother's home, and my niece found a home with a family in the neighborhood until we could find a home for young unwed mothers to take her. My sister and her boyfriend spent a year on the streets of Albuquerque, and the next time I heard about her she was lying in an Albuquerque hospital ICU in a diabetic coma. It was strange, because I had had so many of those after midnight calls about predicaments my sister was in that I had come to believe she had nine lives. My sister had a seizure that would not end, and it was irreversible. The hospital told us that she would die if taken off the life support machines. My mother would not sign the legal paper to turn off the machines, so, as I had been the first in my family to hold her as an infant, I was the one who had to sign the order to turn off the machines, as my sister had a living will. She died 3 days later. I was asked to give a eulogy, and it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. My sister was a woman caught between two worlds. The world of her adopted family, and the world of her birth heritage.
When people ask me how I became so well attuned to working with Indigenous people in Chemical Dependency Counseling, I don't try to explain. The story is too long and too sad to tell. People in treatment need hope, not the bleak and unvarnished truth of my sister's end. We smudged, we allowed prayer songs, and we never presumed to know the experience of the Indigenous people in therapy. Their story is what they choose to share. Some of my former clients would call me, asking for help. While I practiced, I never turned them away. From my sister's experience, I never wanted them to end the way she did. We would find ways to help them if we could. But I can tell you, there is no greater honor than being asked to a Sun Dance, and being able to attend, and to see a man who was nearly dead pray to the Creator. To hear those prayers in their native language put chills down my spine and somehow soothed the pain of my sister's death.
Mr. Alexie said he struggled with alcohol, and that his father died from drinking alcohol. All I can say is that I was thrilled to hear of his recovery, and I want to say that every Native American or other person who needs treatment should be able to have treatment, preferably in a manner that is sensitive to Indigenous culture. Too many brilliant and creative men and women of Indigenous heritage have ended the way my sister did, and it is not only a tribal tragedy, it is a national tragedy.
Copyright 2014 by Peter Reum-All Rights Reserved
Mr. Alexie also confided to Mr. Moyers that he believed that he knew more about the White Man's world than Caucasians know about being Indigenous. He pointed out that Liberals love Indigenous people, and that it was a point of humor among many Indigenous people. I would agree, in that I am guilty of being liberal (progressive?) and have always been fond of Native Americans. My late sister, Susan, was of Picuris/San Ildefonso Pueblo heritage, and it sensitized me fairly quickly. Her daughter is my favorite niece. Growing up in the Southwest in New Mexico, I first had the experience of being a minority group member in the Espanola Valley Public Schools, and there were roughly three Anglos/Caucasians, at that time meaning Caucasians and African-Americans, for every 10 people of Latino or Indigenous ancestry. My father, an insightful man, had me learn Spanish from the age of 6, and my ability to speak it has been of lifelong help to me. I remember traveling through the South in the days of "Separate but Equal" with my mother, little sister, aged grandfather, and great aunt to Florida, and having to stay in motels catering to African American customers because my little sister, then just a baby, was very dark skinned. My parents, out of the kindness of their heart, had adopted both of us as babies. Those experiences, among others, gave me a lifelong sense of what it felt like to be different.
Growing up in my first 13 years in a multi-cultural community served me well throughout my career, especially in my counseling practice, because I was comfortable working with both Latinos and Indigenous clientele. In eighth grade, I went from a school system that was 80 percent Hispanic and Native American and 20 percent Anglo, to a school system that was 80 percent Anglo and 20 percent Hispanic and Indigenous. It took me a full year to acclimate, although the people of Los Alamos were very hospitable, and I made friends easily.
Which brings me back to Mr. Alexie, and his experience, which to some degree is the reverse of my sister's. My sister grew up some 5 miles from where her birth parents lived, and some of the people who worked with my father in the National Laboratory knew both her birth family and our family. My sister was raised as Anglo, but never was able to deny her Indigenous appearance or heritage. She had a good social experience in both school systems, but, having dyslexia, she did not benefit from school or find it to have the same positive rewards that I did. She fell in love with my niece's father, a member of San Juan Pueblo, and went to live in that pueblo. My mother spent some time trying to help my sister, but she did not want college, and slowly fell into bouts of intoxication. She was accepted by her husband's family at San Juan, and it became apparent that her husband's family also knew my sister's birth family.
Slowly, my sister began to accept her Indigenous heritage, and she made up her mind to seek the consent of her birth family to be allowed to register as a tribal member at San Ildefonso Pueblo. She met a few brothers from her birth family, and found out that she was a granddaughter of Maria Martinez, the famous San Ildefonso Pueblo re-discoverer of black on black pottery. When my mother and sister went to meet her birth parents, they were kind and cordial, and said they would do what they could to help her register in that tribe. I think my sister visited them at least three more times, but there was no action to help her register. The rejection devastated her, and seemed to maroon her between the Caucasian world of her adopted family and the Indigenous world of her husband and daughter, who were tribally registered in San Juan Pueblo. There were visits that I made and that my mother made to see her, and much of what we heard and saw was similar to what Sherman Alexie shared in Smoke Signals. The first time I went to visit, some of her husband's friends asked me what tribe I was from. I told them "Clan Scott, they named the country after us, you know, Scotland!" They said it was the first time a white man had understood the question. I felt like had passed a hazing. They went on to talk with me, and we had a good visit.
My sister's alcohol dependence turned into chemical dependence. Her husband immolated himself in the family home, and died an agonizing death in the University of New Mexico Hospital Burn Unit. My niece was fatherless. My sister's husband's death seemed to take the wind from her sails. She stopped caring for herself, and it was as if the combination of rejection by her birth family and her husband's death severed her attachment to the Indigenous world. She slowly became more and more chemically dependent, and I had to remove my mother from her own home to keep her from being physically abused and financially exploited by my sister and her opioid dependent boyfriend. The mortgage was foreclosed on my mother's home, and my niece found a home with a family in the neighborhood until we could find a home for young unwed mothers to take her. My sister and her boyfriend spent a year on the streets of Albuquerque, and the next time I heard about her she was lying in an Albuquerque hospital ICU in a diabetic coma. It was strange, because I had had so many of those after midnight calls about predicaments my sister was in that I had come to believe she had nine lives. My sister had a seizure that would not end, and it was irreversible. The hospital told us that she would die if taken off the life support machines. My mother would not sign the legal paper to turn off the machines, so, as I had been the first in my family to hold her as an infant, I was the one who had to sign the order to turn off the machines, as my sister had a living will. She died 3 days later. I was asked to give a eulogy, and it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. My sister was a woman caught between two worlds. The world of her adopted family, and the world of her birth heritage.
When people ask me how I became so well attuned to working with Indigenous people in Chemical Dependency Counseling, I don't try to explain. The story is too long and too sad to tell. People in treatment need hope, not the bleak and unvarnished truth of my sister's end. We smudged, we allowed prayer songs, and we never presumed to know the experience of the Indigenous people in therapy. Their story is what they choose to share. Some of my former clients would call me, asking for help. While I practiced, I never turned them away. From my sister's experience, I never wanted them to end the way she did. We would find ways to help them if we could. But I can tell you, there is no greater honor than being asked to a Sun Dance, and being able to attend, and to see a man who was nearly dead pray to the Creator. To hear those prayers in their native language put chills down my spine and somehow soothed the pain of my sister's death.
Mr. Alexie said he struggled with alcohol, and that his father died from drinking alcohol. All I can say is that I was thrilled to hear of his recovery, and I want to say that every Native American or other person who needs treatment should be able to have treatment, preferably in a manner that is sensitive to Indigenous culture. Too many brilliant and creative men and women of Indigenous heritage have ended the way my sister did, and it is not only a tribal tragedy, it is a national tragedy.
Copyright 2014 by Peter Reum-All Rights Reserved
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