“There is nothing greater than giving back to your land”
It’s one of those times (again) when I’m heart-wrenchingly conflicted. I’m sure many of you relate to feeling this way.
On the one hand, I want to write about a million different things, not the least of which include the tiny slip of warm water currently flowing between the banks of the Middle Rio Grande—hardly a hearty welcome for the sandhill cranes that will be arriving soon—and last week’s shooting in Española, and the dangerous, sickening, and exhausting legacy of white supremacy.
On the other hand, I don’t want to write about anything. I don’t want to grapple with hard topics or complex layers. I don’t want to open my heart to challenging issues or difficult experiences. I don’t want to challenge the opinions I’ve formed due to my own history, culture, gender, class, and experiences.
So, of course, this is precisely the time to listen, learn, and lean into hard conversations.
Coming up on October 13, one of those hard conversations is with Rebecca Clarren, author of The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance.
At the turn of the 20th century, Clarren’s ancestors fled antisemitism in Russia to start new lives in America, where they became homesteaders on lands the U.S. government stole from the Lakota people. “America has failed to undergo any process of national truth telling, reparation, or reconciliation, let alone any real public amends,” she writes in her book, which published this week.
During our conversation, Clarren says that as a longtime journalist covering the western United States, she was uncomfortable “pretending” to be an unbiased observer to the legacy of federal policies on Indigenous people. “I have clearly benefited as a descendant of homesteaders from policies that caused great harm to Native people—and so that’s where then this book was born.”
Clarren talks about her book, in which she reckons with a past that still reverberates today—and engages in the “moral obligation to pursue justice.” If you think you don’t need to read her book (or watch our conversation) because you’re neither Jewish nor Lakota, I’ll kindly correct you. This is a story about America.
As she writes in The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance: “Our failure to teach American history in its full and nuanced complexity leads to ignorance, which saps empathy and allows racism and hatred to flourish, which keeps our caste system in place, which keeps marginalized people poor and disenfranchised, which allows the dominant class to maintain a historical narrative that is inaccurate in its simplicity. How to stop this cycle of harm?”
Clarren is an old friend and colleague of mine from High Country News. And yet, her book continued to surprise me and take me to new places. It also offers ways forward. She writes, for instance, of the work she embarks on with her rabbi, her community, and her family. Here’s an excerpt:
“…from their earliest written texts, Jewish scholars have insisted we have a moral obligation to pursue justice, to repair the world, to take responsibility for our part. I’ve returned, repeatedly, to the famous philosopher Maimonides’ laws of repentance, and his time-tested strategy for making things right. Here is a modern break-down of his six steps:
First: Stop doing the harm. Second: Confess as specifically as possible what harm you have caused and ideally, say this truth out loud in public. Third: Begin the work of transforming yourself from a person capable of causing such harm to one who isn’t. (In ancient days, people changed their names. Today, it might mean therapy.) Fourth: Make financial restitution that reflects the size of the harm. Fifth: Apologize in a way that doesn’t necessarily anticipate being forgiven but that makes clear to the victim that you have heard them, and that you understand how you have caused them pain. Finally: When you face the opportunity to cause the same sort of harm, make different choices.”
I’ve already shared this 2022 interview about healthy masculinities, but I’d like to pass it around again, as I think about it all the time. I certainly thought about it when I read the news of last week’s shooting in Española.
I also often think about why there are so few public and productive conversations about what it means to be a healthy man, raise healthy men, love healthy men, and build a future with healthy men and healthy families. As Tewa Women United’s Dr. Corrine Sanchez said during that conversation, “We know that a healthy ecosystem is a diverse ecosystem, and we want to make sure that we’re reflecting that in our communities and in our families.”
Following up on a recent conversation with three U.S. Forest Service officials about last year’s escaped prescribed fires, new fire protocols, and building trust, I wanted to mention a recent Indigenous Education Institute webinar with Elizabeth Azzuz (Yurok and Karuk).
Azzuz is part of the Cultural Fire Management Council, and she was speaking last week about the importance of traditional native Karuk methods of prescribed fire.
The council’s mission is to “facilitate the practice of cultural burning on the Yurok Reservation and Ancestral lands, which will lead to a healthier ecosystem for all plants and animals, long term fire protection for residents, and provide a platform that will in turn support the traditional hunting and gathering activities of Yurok.” Fire benefits people and ecosystems there in many ways, she explained, including for certain foods, hazel harvesting for baskets, and forage for wildlife.
“There is nothing greater than giving back to your land,” she said at one point. Part of that giving back is allowing fire to burn where she belongs, she said.
“Fire will always come back to where she is comfortable, where she survived,” Azzuz said, including in those places where fires were suppressed for more than a century. “Fire is doing her job. She is working with her sister, Mother Nature.”
Whereas many people fear fire, Azzuz said she doesn’t feel that same way: “I see it as Mother Nature cleaning up her floor, Mother Nature making it more comfortable for us in the future.” Azzuz speaks about fire in ways that will challenge many people’s ideas and assumptions, and I recommend watching the conversation and learning more.
Here are a few things to read or listen to this week. First, be sure to hit up the incredible work from Patrick Lohmann, who has continued to cover the Hermits Peak – Calf Canyon Fire:
• “Life in Limbo: Victims of New Mexico’s Biggest Wildfire Wait for Checks From the Federal Government to Rebuild” (Patrick Lohmann and Byard Duncan, Source New Mexico / ProPublica)
• “FEMA Has So Far Paid Out Less Than 1% of What Congress Allocated for Victims of New Mexico Wildfire” (Megan Gleason and Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico / ProPublica)
• “State introduces new prescribed burn training for landowners” (Megan Myscofski, KUNM)
• “Eight workers exposed to toxic dust at LANL, a recurring problem” (Scott Wyland, Santa Fe New Mexican)
• “Colorado River officials to expand troubled water conservation program in 2024” (Robert Davis, Colorado Newsline via Source New Mexico)
• “Spotted owls slow silver search near Mogollon” (Juno Ogle, Silver City Daily Press)
• “Deadline for Colorado wolf reintroduction nears” (Geoffrey Plant, Taos News)
• “Daniel Wildcat on Native Ways of Knowing” (Tribal College Journal)
• “Saving the mysterious piñon pines of Owl Canyon” (Mary Taylor Young, Colorado State University)
Lastly, just a reminder that it’s election day in the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District. If you’re eligible to vote, please do so! Here’s a link to information about eligibility, candidates, and polling places.
Thanks for reading—and please do tune into my conversation on October 13 with author Rebecca Clarren. I’ll be taking a break from the newsletter next week, but you’ll hear from me again on October 17!
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