Season 4, Episode 3: Skoden!

May 3, 2024

Sara and Daniel interview Tommy Orange, author of There There and Wandering Stars to talk about urban native representation, why it's important to read books by and about people different from you and how much they love the Reservation Dogs soundtrack as they dig into ReadICT Category 12: A book by an indigenous author.

Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcription. Some errors may occur. If you find a transcription error, please contact us with any corrections and we will make those corrections as quickly as possible.

SARA DIXON, VOICEOVER: Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Read. Return. Repeat. I'm Sara.

DANIEL PEWEWARDY, VOICEOVER: And I'm Daniel. And --

SARA, VOICEOVER: We're your co-hosts for this wonderful library podcast, a production of Wichita Public Library. Daniel, who are we interviewing today?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: So as you know, every category of ReadICT is an episode. Category 12 is a book by an indigenous author, which is a tie-in to our Big Read.

SARA, VOICEOVER: That's correct.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: And this episode, we are interviewing the Big Read, the person who wrote the Big Read book, Tommy Orange.

SARA, VOICEOVER: That's right. We got Tommy Orange on the podcast today. We're so excited. Hopefully you all have picked up and read There There. But even if you didn't, I think you're gonna get a lot out of today's episode.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Yeah, It's been mentioned on the show before but I'm also Native. I am an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation. And I thought I can, we could since category 12 is book by an indigenous author, I thought I can like do a cultural exchange with you.

SARA, VOICEOVER: I would love that.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: And share some like cool Native slang that like it's already on the show Reservation Dogs, so we all decided as Natives like, okay, every, like non-Natives can use it too.

SARA, VOICEOVER: So it's okay for me to use these words?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: It's completely cool to use these words. I would use them sparingly. So the first one is like --

SARA, VOICEOVER: Probably will not be ever in an appropriate situation to these words, but that's okay, we're learning.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: The first one is skoden, spelled s-k-o-d-e-n.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Skoden.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Skoden. So like say like, you know, your friend's like, "You hungry," and you're like, "Yeah, I'm hungry." And he's like, "You wanna go eat," and then you just go like, "Skoden!"

SARA, VOICEOVER: Skoden.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Or if some guy's like trying to fight you and you're like, "You want to fight," he's like, "Yeah, you want to fight? Okay, let's fight," and then you go, "Skoden!" And so skoden is basically... it's not even a Native word. It's --

SARA, VOICEOVER: Skoden.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Let's go then, like, sped up. And like, kinda like --

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Skoden.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: It's like abbreviated, yeah, skoden. And also studis is also, let's do this, you can do that.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Studis?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Yeah, studis like s-t-u-d-i-s. I don't know if the video will have these words written out. But that's also like, "Yeah, let's do this."

SARA, VOICEOVER: Skudis. Studis? Studis.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Studis, yeah. Instead of saying, "let's do this," you're saying studis.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Okay, okay.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: And then sometimes Natives also like to let everyone know they're joking, they would be like, "ehhhh," after. That's also a Native thing, but I won't do that one.

SARA, VOICEOVER: I feel like sometimes I do that anyway.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: A lot of, it's also like, it's --

SARA, VOICEOVER: Should I not do it? Am I like --

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: I mean, the Fonz does it so --

SARA, VOICEOVER: I feel like I'm doing it because it's more of a Fonz thing I'm doing.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Like the Fonz misappropriated it. It's kind of the same vibe.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Okay.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: But anyway, Tommy Orange.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Yes, okay. We'll get to the episode.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Are you ready to do this interview?

SARA, VOICEOVER: Yes. Let's get into it. Tommy Orange. Tommy is an American novelist and writer from Oakland, California. His first book, There There, was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and received the 2019 American Book Award. Tommy is a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and he is our Big Read author for this year's Big Read.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: He wrote, he released a book last year -- or this year called Wandering Stars, which is kind of a follow-up to There There. And also last year, he was a part of a Native American indigenous author horror anthology called Never Whistle At Night. And he has a short in that one too. So yeah, I am really excited about this interview. So let's go ahead and throw it over the Tommy Orange. Skoden!

SARA, VOICEOVER: Skoden. [LAUGHS]

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Skoden, Tommy Orange.

SARA: All right. We're here with Tommy Orange, author of There There. We're so excited to have you on Read. Return. Repeat. Thanks for joining us.

TOMMY ORANGE: Thank you so much for having me.

SARA: So let's just start right off. If anybody has not read There There yet, can you give us a little bit of an overview on it? And why did you decide to write your story from so many different perspectives?

TOMMY: So, you know, I think I had read some books leading up to that, right, people were doing multi POV perspective. And so I liked it as a reader, and in a single moment of the end of 2010 I just found out I was going to be a father and was headed to L.A. to see a concert. And it popped into my head that I would have all these characters end up at an Oakland powwow, all these Native characters in Oakland, and you would kind of find out along the way how they were connected and why they were going there. So that was the premise and it was always a bunch of characters. I always wanted to write from that, in that way. So the book is basically finding out how roughly 12 characters end up at a powwow at the Oakland Coliseum and along the way you find out that some of the characters are trying to rob the powwow and others are part of putting it together. And some people are related to each other and others aren't. And that's basically it.

DANIEL: I really liked the structure a lot. It reminds me like Robert Altman movies with like, following different characters around and stuff and it was a really cool way to like, learn a story.

SARA: I don't know that director but I liked it too.

TOMMY: Thank, you, yeah. I think film also had an influence on the decision to do multi POV.

DANIEL: In the prologue, you write, "Getting us to cities was meant to be the final step in our assimilation." And the book follows mostly urban Natives. How can urban neighborhoods reserve their culture in an environment that seeks to erase or in some cases seeks to erase or appropriate their Native identities?

TOMMY: I mean, I think in There There is there's a lot of different answers for how in real life how urban Native people remain connected. In There There, it's, it's sort of around the powwow and what I'm calling the Indian Center. And this, I worked at such a center, actually called the Native American Health Center, for about eight years, and worked on a powwow committee. And that's where I got the idea, I think for this... the idea that cash prizes or gift cards are handed out to dancers. It led to me coming up with the robbery sort of plot element. So the people in There There are connected through this community center. And one of the characters, you know, has a grandmother who didn't really pass on stories or heritage, or cultural lifeways, and he learns how to powwow dance through watching YouTube videos. So I have a lot of the characters thinking about connection, one of the characters is a documentary filmmaker and he's sort of connecting through storytelling. There's a lot of different ways that we connect to the community and culture. Even while you know, there's a history of assimilation and separation and appropriation exist.

DANIEL: I'm actually, I'm an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation, and I am on the board of our Indian Center or former -- it's a museum now because a lot of the social services are... but like, like the powwow planning committee, I was like, "Oh, I've been in these meetings." And it was, it was a cool like thing, kind of seeing that from the Oakland perspective.

SARA: Daniel got to be our emcee for our Big Read kickoff. So we were really excited to have him do that, too.

TOMMY: That sounds cool.

DANIEL: Yeah, it was fun. Like I said "wee-cha" a lot and talked about the old ways.

SARA: So yeah, I really, just I thought all of your characters were... I don't know, I just really was like rooting for every single one of them. But also the... I don't think it's a spoiler, because if you haven't read it, I mean, the book's been out for a couple years now. So kind of on you. But the 3D printed gun terrifies me. I don't even have a question. It's just a comment. It terrifies me the fact that people can, like, come up with this and use it as a means to escape metal detectors.

DANIEL: Yeah.

TOMMY: I don't feel like that, I don't think there's that much to worry about from what I can tell. I don't think they really perfected the technology yet. I haven't heard any updates. You know, they have ghost guns are kind of a scary thing too because they're untraceable, that you can like get all these different parts and put them together. Yeah, that, the idea came from, I was at a artist-in-residency in New Hampshire. And I was thinking about this problem about how do I get the guns in because I know the Coliseum has metal detectors. And an artist, a fellow artist was giving a presentation because that's part of what you do at these residencies. And he was a 3D printer artist. And this is in 2014 so he was kind of ahead of his time. And I was just watching something that he was making on the 3D printer sort of in the back of the room. Just I was watching this thing spool something out.

And I was like, "Oh, I wonder if these things can make guns," and went down this rabbit hole and found out enough and since it's fiction, I don't need it to be super, you know, accurate and perfect. I found out enough that I was like, "I can, I can pull this off." And by the time that book came out, that technology had gotten to where I'd seen YouTube videos of people firing bullets. So the fear is real but I also don't feel like it's become like a easily done. super accessible and super easy thing to do kind of... yeah, something to be, I don't think it's anything to be afraid of for now. In the future, there's lots to be afraid of including A.I. replacing all of us and authors too.

DANIEL: My parents, like, watch detective procedurals and multiple, like, Law & Order kind of shows. And like a couple of shows have had rogue A.I. as like, possible, like, murderers on the show. And it's like, they're not sci-fi shows. It's like, there's shows that kind of get a little dramatic with that stuff. So that's like where we're at with that. It's no longer like far science fiction, it's like, this could maybe happen.

TOMMY: Yeah.

SARA: No thanks. I'm not here for that.

So I know you talked a lot about prologue, the prologue, because it's actually, it's such a poetic and beautiful way of framing such an awful thing. The writing was beautiful. But we have one more question about it. Another line that all of us were really struck by. it says, "We've been defined by everyone else and continue to be slandered, despite easy to look up on the internet facts about the realities of our histories and current state as a people." And we were just wondering, like, do you think that that's a conscious decision, that so many people just stay ignorant? I mean, I, I don't think that that's singular to the Native experience, either. I think a lot of people just stay ignorant to different things going on in the world.

TOMMY: I mean, I wouldn't say it's conscious like on an individual basis because it's, it's institutionalized, this, this like absence of Native history, and this false sort of maybe glorified, you know, Thanksgiving meal that we still celebrate. And in schools, we still teach pilgrimS stories. And this is like 400-year-old history with no updates along the way, like, unless you have a teacher who's Native or is somehow connected to Native people, you don't have it taught in schools at all. And in college, unless you decide you want to take a Native history class, or you major in it, there's a way that you can never even like hear about it.

So I wouldn't say it's like a conscious effort to not know about it, but it's something that like, exists in the background that's designed by people just in the same way that we, what we choose to teach in curriculum in history is like, celebrates war and patriotism. And none of this stuff is, you know, on accident. This is, this is all stuff that people have designed. So I think there's, unless you have a personal reason to connect to Native people, or if, you know, if you experience a piece of art like a book or movie and it moves you to find out more, I wouldn't say it's a willful ignorance, I would say it's just the way things are.

SARA: I think that really speaks to the importance of, you know, reading authors that are different from yourself. And I feel like we tried to do that with the ReadICT reading challenge. That's one of our categories this year is an indigenous author, but other categories are like someone... a book about or by somebody who's neurodivergent, you know, trying to experience all of these different ways of living and being and existing. And that's the beauty of reading from your local librarians.

DANIEL: I remember like, one thing I've noticed since There There has come out is like people asking me about things or knowing things about like, Native culture, and like things mentioned like Alcatraz and all those things. And I think it's really cool that, you know, like, people kind of learn those through reading and stuff. And like, I remember when I was doing, I was like in graduate school, when I was in library school I did like an archive, archiving, like final project on like, urban Native American population archives. And like, there was like, nothing on Google, like I had to be really creative with it. And like I, when I was doing searches for like, the History Walk program and things, I was noticing a lot more resources and things in the recent years. And just like, visibility for urban Natives is like, I feel like up because of you. So I just want to say thank you for that.

TOMMY: Thank you. And I also feel like there's a lot of work to do. Because there's, even though there's a lot more visibility now and a lot more Native books coming out, I still don't feel like people... there's so many years to work against to have us be in the city. Because everything we've been before has been historical or it's reservation. And so I still don't feel like I'm seeing a massive representation of, of Native people in cities and I'd love to keep seeing more of it.

DANIEL: And also what I liked, one of my favorite parts was... I forgot where it is in the book, but you kind of talk about like Natives, like people misconstrue Natives for like being one with nature, but it's more like they're one with their environment. So like urban Natives can feel their city just in... I do that like when I, you know, like what, like how traffic, you know, like what, like weather, like, you know, like the animal that you see, like, I have bats in my neighborhood and stuff. And like, I live downtown with a lot of houseless populations. And it's like, these are things I'm in tune to, like I try to like... and I, when those passages in the book kind of reminded me like, of kind of like Native, the urban Native identity and things and like, so thank you. Yeah.

TOMMY: Yeah, totally. I always think of the, the idea that if aliens came to visit, they wouldn't look at our cities and be like, "Oh, this is like, non-earth material." And they would be like, "These are earthlings using earth materials to make structures," you know, like the way we look at super ant colonies. We don't think of like the ants getting their materials from somewhere else. It's just that we've separated ourselves from, from these artificial or manmade things in this way that doesn't allow the inclusion of that as natural environment.

DANIEL: Yeah. That yeah, that part too was really good. I never thought about it like that, but yeah, it's like, yeah, that's where they're all coming from.

So you just released Wandering Stars. Can you give our listeners a little like, taste of that, what that book is about, and how is it similar or different from There There?

TOMMY: So Wandering Stars is kind of a prequel and a sequel to There There. We go back in history, back to the Sand Creek Massacre. And we follow a family line that leads you to the aftermath of what happens at the end of There There. So you kind of understand as a reader, you understand an ancestral line, even if the family that you follow in the aftermath of what happens at the end of There There doesn't totally understand their own history. And so you, but you understand the weight. And so you follow this one family and how they survive and stay together and don't stay together. This shooting at the powwow that ends the first book.

SARA: Yeah, I have not had a chance to pick it up yet. But I know one of our podcast members has read it and was really just interested into how it all kind of wove together with the stories in There There. And so, in the book, some of the characters are raised by non-Native parents who play a significant role in the negative choices these characters make as they get older. Why did you choose to highlight -- and I think that's a nice way of putting it, is that a nice way of putting it? Why did you choose to highlight these kinds of family upbringings in that novel?

TOMMY: You know, I'm talking a lot about assimilation. And, and one of the challenges to people understanding assimilation -- because sometimes it feels like a really soft term or like a technical term -- but I think it's a really good illustration of what happens sometimes. Native kids end up being raised by white people. And that doesn't make them less Native. But it creates a challenge for them to understand what it means. So I wanted to write into that experience. I did a similar thing in There There, there's a character named Blue who grows up in a city, or a town near Oakland, kind of in a more upper-class neighborhood with white parents. And she's adopted, but she's full-blood. And she knows that she's Native, but she doesn't know what it means. And so it's just an interesting way to look at Native identity that I, that I wanted to write into and, and do again in this other way, because it disrupts this family line and some cultural knowledge and stories that we... makes you understand why it doesn't quite reach to the present day family that you follow in Wandering Stars.

DANIEL: I think, yeah, no, I was like, working like with Natives and learning people that are like reconnecting and everything. It's like really... like I was very lucky that like, I, you know, like, spent some time in Oklahoma. Then we moved to Wichita and like, my parents, like always kind of like, you know, like, kept us around, like, like the Native community here and stuff and like, it's just kind of like... I always, I think it's interesting because I always consider myself an urban Native and then when I moved to Wichita, and met people that were like multi-generational urban Natives -- because I was only like in Lawton area for like four years. And I was like wow, it's like I... there's a huge, those four years was like I can tell like, things I got also because I have family down and stuff like that was connected more. And like I just never even thought about like the multi-generational aspect of that was... and you like looking at that in There There and also following a lot of these stories of like really interesting and you can kind of see how it develops and stuff. Yeah.

TOMMY: Yeah. And since I worked in Oakland for many years, and I've worked with community members on storytelling projects, I came to understand because I didn't know it myself growing up, that we had generations going all the way back to the '50s. And so you had, you know, people raising their families in this environment for generations.

DANIEL: Have you seen... I forgot the name, of course I forgot the name of it. It's a movie, it's the urban Native movie in like Los Angeles.

TOMMY: Oh, 19, it came in 1963. It's called the, it is called... oh.

DANIEL: I want to call it The Outsiders. I know that's not it, though.

TOMMY: I know. I almost called it The Outsiders too. And then I went I went to Outcasts. The Exiles, it's the Exiles.

DANIEL: Oh, yeah. Yeah, The Exiles. I recently watched that after having it recommended and that was so cool seeing like, that slice of life and like Natives living in Los Angeles in the 1950s. And like, like, it's like, I've been recommending that movie non-stop ever since I saw it.

TOMMY: Yeah, it's a really cool movie.

DANIEL: Yeah. It's on Kanopy. If you have a library subscription, you can watch it on Kanopy, so.

SARA: Right, always promoting those library resources.

DANIEL: Oh, so how did you approach historical research when you were writing your novels, especially given the written records of marginalized groups aren't always the most reliable?

TOMMY: Yeah, I mean, I just, there's a lot of different kinds of research that I had to do, and you kind of have to check your, who you're reading and, you know, like, Pratt has a book that he put out and you have to cherry pick certain things and, and understanding the context, and you just have to be critical the whole way through because we didn't get, we weren't allowed to tell our stories for a long time. But there's still information you can get that's interesting. And you can still use it in fiction, even if you know it's a flawed source. So I just read wide, and read as much as I could about the time periods. And, you know, I, I don't end up including that much history in the work because I write character-driven stuff. So there's a lot of interiority. And I just need to do the historical research to convince myself that I can write about characters from that time. And then I try to make them feel as human as possible, kind of from the inside out.

DANIEL: Do you feel, so like do you feel being like a Native person and like, kind of writing these books... like, I feel like I have to explain things a lot to my friends when I talk about, like, Native stuff. Did you like feel like, when you're writing things that you... some of the historical stuff is to give... I guess the question I am asking is like, do you feel like being Native and like writing to like a broader audience, like there's a burden of like giving context like, because there's a lot of context, does that make sense?

TOMMY: Yeah, yeah.

DANIEL: People don't know what ICWA is, people don't know. Like, I like I just wondering, like, how that played in your writing. Like, what do you tell people? What do you not tell people, I guess.

TOMMY: I mean, I, I think with There There I was writing, I didn't feel like there was any urban Native narrative out there at all. So even, and I don't think of specific audiences. And, you know, half, I wrote half the book when I was in a Native program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. And so I, there was a certain amount that I would put it in and certain amount that I didn't and I think maybe it was a little more heavy-handed in assuming that not everybody knew the context of, of the urban Native story. I think I put in more in There There than I did in Wandering Stars. I think there's... I did include a lot of historical pieces in Wandering Stars, but I wasn't as heavy-handed. Even though I knew there's this huge audience because of the success of There There, a huge non-Native audience that would be reading it, I didn't feel... I feel like the internet exists and therefore if there's anything that you want to keep looking into, or fact check me on, like, please do that. But I would rather, you know, think about the sentences and the readability and the pacing and the story arc as a whole.

SARA: Also, it's fiction, right?

TOMMY: Yeah. Yeah.

SARA: Whatever, history.

TOMMY: Exactly.

DANIEL: The other day, I was talking with, like college students the other day and I was talking about Standing Rock, but very matter of factly. My friend who was a professor that asked me to talk to the class was like, "Can you tell these kids what Standing Rock is?" And in my brain, like Standing Rock's like --

SARA: Just happened!

DANIEL: -- eight years old, but it's like, it's so, it's so bizarre that like... especially with social media like it was ingrained as like a Native person online, you knew what it was, but it's like, "Oh, there's a whole generation of people that have no idea what I'm talking about."

TOMMY: Yeah, I think I've encountered that with going around and talking to young people. Because if you were like six when Standing Rock was happening and you're not Native, that's not going to hit your radar.

DANIEL: Yeah.

SARA: So as you know, in many Native American cultures, storytelling is a way of preserving the past traditions, language, and even trickster tales. I read a bunch of trickster tales in college because I took a Native American literature class. But it also fosters community and healing through the sharing of these stories. And I feel like your characters are healing constantly through this whole thing. Or maybe just trying to figure out how to survive. Anyway, can you talk a little bit about your approach to storytelling? Are you... do you have any of these lofty goals? Are you just trying to entertain us? Or something in between?

TOMMY: I mean, I think I came to storytelling through fiction and through literature, rather than having a tradition like my... I don't have anybody in my family who's necessarily a good storyteller. I found fiction, and I really mostly read a lot of works in translation. And because I came to fiction completely on my own, I just read whatever I wanted. I didn't, I wasn't even aware that there was a whole Native canon out there, and didn't really read that much of it until I got into the MFA. And part of the requirement of what you're reading and what you're studying on a craft level is that, you know, half of the books have to be written by Native authors. So I had read a certain amount before the program. But it was really fiction, learning storytelling through learning how to write fiction. That was a big part of the way I thought about storytelling. It was, you know, it's, it's the written thing, it's on the page, and maybe the performed work.

But then I also, for many years I did digital storytelling work. And I worked in the Native community, and then with marginalized groups around the country. So digital storytelling was like three-day workshops where we would work with non-writers on telling their stories and then turn them into, you know, two to three minute short films. And we would, they would do everything the whole way through. They would tell the story, they would write the script, and then we would teach them the software and they would come away with these two minute, two to three minute films were often empowering and, you know, highlighting some aspect of the marginalized communities they were come from that were often not highlighted, or... you know, I don't like the term "voiceless" anymore because the de-emphasizes listening and puts it on people not having the voice because people, these people have stories and voices. So I did that work.

And it, that really shaped me too, teaching people who, realizing that people naturally tell stories in a compelling and personal way. When you put people in a circle and they just talk, that is natural storytelling. You'll hear people do it naturally and beautifully. And then when you get, when you try to get them to write it, the way we teach writing in a lot, most institutions is like this really sterilized, de-voicing formulaic scientific approach, like here's what the essay is. You know, thesis, conclusion, like it doesn't emphasize voice and personality. And so I would try to get them to remember, like, remember what you said in the circle when we were just talking? Like, that was a beautiful piece. Like, how come that didn't end up in the writing? And so I did that reconnection to people in their stories, and then by the time we would watch, they would watch and hear their voiceovers and watch the short films they put together and they would be able to... you know, you can see people transform knowing that they had that power in them.

And so that obviously shaped decisions I made for the plot of There There because I have a digital storytelling person sort of collecting all these Native stories in Oakland. So those two pieces, you know, fiction and this digital storytelling work that I did, were really what shapes my idea of storytelling.

SARA: That's really cool.

DANIEL: Yeah, that's, that's, that's awesome. Like, I always find it's like, I know there's like with technology and like, like remaining indigenous and those kind of... some people think of it as they're conflicting. I think it's really cool when people like kind of carry on or find ways to adapt like the oral tradition or other traditions in like a new format. I think like that's an awesome way to do, especially like...

TOMMY: And the tradition of a lot of Native people dependent on adaptability. If we were all, if all of our tribes were doing the same things for 10,000 years, we wouldn't be as diverse as we are. So, you know, if you go back in my tribe, we were at one point, we were in the Great Lakes and agricultural, and we ended up following the buffalo. And you know, then you're in the reservation and then you're in the city. And, you know, we're human and we adapt. And sometimes we're not given that status. We're, we're told, like, this is what the authentic Native person is. And they are somehow related to the pilgrims that we learned about, and they look this one way. And so we're not allowed our humanity and the diversity that humans are allowed. And I think that's a big problem in the perception of Native people from the outside.

DANIEL: Yeah, I, it's, yeah, I'm always been like... well, I always tell people like Comanches were post-colonial, like, we broke from the Shoshone, like, after contact. So it's like, adaptability is part of our thing. And I just think that's always like that one thing that people always tend to, like, think Native Americans are old-fashioned or conservative in their ways. It's like, we're still here, because we always like, found a way to like, you know, adapt and things. Yeah, you see a lot of that with the characters in There There. And I really like I thought it was cool.

TOMMY: Thank you.

SARA: Well, let's take a short break if that's okay.

TOMMY: Yeah.

SARA: And then we'll come back. We'll keep talking about all of the wonderful things with Tommy Orange. So hey, stay tuned.

DANIEL: Thank you so much. Yeah, we'll be back.

TOMMY: Yeah, thank you. All right.

VOICEOVER: Attention ReadICT super fans. If you're looking for a place to chat about your favorite books, get excellent reading recommendations for challenge categories, or just meet some new friends who love books as much as you do, check out the ReadICT challenge Facebook group. To join us on Facebook, simply search for groups using #ReadICT challenge and click join. For more information on the ReadICT challenge, visit wichitalibrary.org/readict.

DANIEL: And we're back with Tommy Orange. So in a recent New York Times article, you mentioned you weren't much of a reader in high school "and nobody handed me a book and said this is for you." What kind of Native representation did you have growing up? Was writing your response to not seeing yourself in the literature?

TOMMY: I think when I found writing, I don't know that I was... I wasn't necessarily trying to fill the void. But there was a void of representation growing up. You know, being Native was like having a Native dad who Cheyenne was his first language. And it was going back to Oklahoma and seeing family there. And you know, it would be, there would be family that would come stay with us from out of town. My dad was in Native American church. So there was a religious aspect to it, certain items that he had. But often there was no other Native kids in school, and certainly nothing on TV.

I remember watching a Bugs Bunny cartoon where he's like shooting Native people and saying like one... you know, doing the, the one little Indian countdown thing. And he stops and he's like, he's taking a tally. And he he stops after shooting one he erases half of a tally and says, "Oops, that one's a half." And that was like, weirdly I like felt seen in that moment, in the saddest way possible. I was like, oh, at least acknowledgement of somebody like me in a cartoon that I actually watched. But yeah, otherwise, there wasn't hardly anything. You know, the only Native book I remember being out there was The Education of Little Tree. And I don't know how much you know about that author. Do you all know?

SARA: I don't think I do.

DANIEL: He was like a member of the Klan or something?

SARA: Oh, I did read about that! Yes.

TOMMY: Yeah.

TOMMY: He was totally faking being, he disappeared from the political scene and came back as a Cherokee guy and wrote that book, and it was a very successful Native book. And you know, it was like in Oprah's book club and people loved the, this romanticized version. I didn't necessarily like it. But that, you know, as far as representation that I just, I didn't see it. And, you know, my fiction really changed when I started writing stuff that included myself.

Before that, the writing that I was doing was, you know, probably poetic and experimental and stream of consciousness and related to weird European writers that I liked or South American writers that I liked. And so once I, once I started including autobiographical information, that was really where things changed. And then, you know, and then writing this story about urban Native people that I knew was not there was definitely related to there being an absence and trying to fill that. But my initial impulse to write was not from the place of I'm going to represent Native people in writing, because I just wasn't that aware that there, that was something that we could even do. Nor did I think of myself as like ever writing something that would be seen by people.

TOMMY: Well, it was and it has been. And you got a lot of fans.

DANIEL: I'm like thinking of representation. I'm like, there was that one G.I. Joe guy. I would see no Natives. Like, Chakotay -- I like also, I recently learned like the guy that was on Renegade, that show, that Native guy was Native Hawaiian. And then I think, like, I read somewhere like the Native American advisor for Star Trek Voyager was not even, he was like a pretend-ian, like a fake. Like, you know, is that... because I, I heard an interview where he talked about The Education of... I've forgot the name of the book, but yeah, and I was like --

TOMMY: Little Tree. Yeah.

DANIEL: That's like, wow, I thought those Native episodes, like the Star Trek Native episodes were like, representation, but it turns out they....

SARA: Oh, no, go ahead. No, you go ahead, Daniel.

DANIEL: Okay.

SARA: Go ahead. Ask some questions.

DANIEL: Do you think the stories you write and those written by other contemporary Native authors are ones that non-Natives can relate to? Also, what are some genres that you would like to see more Native representation? Like, I know like you have like, I've seen horror, poetry, literary fiction are kinda like, they're already like we have Native reps. Are there any other genres do you want to see, like, more Native authors?

TOMMY: I mean, I think I've seen Native authors in all, in most genres. I think the problem is not across genre as much as volume. Because you know, a lot of people are like, aware that there's more Native books now, generally, if you know, you know, the literary world. But truly, it's a very small number when you compare it to white writers. And, you know, there's a lot of other types of writers, but white writers still have a high percentage of what's being put out there. So what I'd really like to see is just higher volume in all genres. And I think when when you have successful authors, you have people in the publishing world willing to take more chances on Native books and acquiring books knowing that there's an audience out there. And I think the fact that there's an audience means that there, that there's a connection, that non-Native people make to Native people.

And I think Americans are kind of hungry for a real representation of Native people because we're such a vital part of American history. And Americans know inside, deep inside whether they want to admit it or not, it has not been told right. Everyone knows that. Especially when you start to hear the real stories and the real histories. You're like, "Oh yeah, why didn't I know anything about this?" So I think there's, there's that connection to that piece of American history that Americans don't have. But also, you know, as you were saying earlier about reading widely and reading neurodivergent, and just diversity in general, because you learn more about what it means to be human. If you're only reading stories that are like, related to what you're like, that's called being a narcissist. And you're not gonna like, understand humanity as widely as you can.

SARA: Absolutely.

SARA: But also, like, I feel like you also should, there should be representation in like romance. I love a good romance. Right? And so I want to see, I want to see representation of all, in all the genres. Is there indigenous romance?

TOMMY: Not that I know of, but if you look up on Audible the word "Cheyenne" -- and I was just doing this researching to see how many books about Cheyennes that were on Audible, just researching -- and there is an inordinate amount of shirtless buff, white men with romance novels that have Cheyenne in the name I don't know why it's popular for romance novels.

SARA: I feel like that's not exactly what I mean when I'm looking for...

TOMMY: It's not what you mean at all.

DANIEL: I feel like you have to own one though like as like... because I have, I have a very corny like Comanche nights romance novel that like... so you gotta get it at some point if you ever see it in the wild. You just have to have one, just put in the drawer.

TOMMY: Why would you put it in the drawer? Put it on the shelf.

TOMMY: Ryan Redcorn actually was really wanting me to write a Native roller hockey love story. Because, you know, when he found out I played roller hockey, he was just fascinated by it. So maybe there's, maybe there's that. I told him I would someday.

DANIEL: I want to see a Ryan Redcorn portrait photo of you in your roller hockey gear at some point. That would be so dope.

TOMMY: I wanted to see a Ryan Redcorn romcom.

DANIEL: Have you seen... he's he did this short, I think it's Dead Bird or Dead Bird Hearts or whatever. Like he, it's a short though, but yeah, no, that would be, that dude's like hilarious.

TOMMY: Yeah.

DANIEL: Native Americans have almost have been almost mythologized on our history in a way that doesn't really happen with other races. You talk about it in There There. There's a drive to honor the cultures of these tribes, but also don't... in a way that's not weird or appropriative. If you feel like sharing, what are some misconceptions about Native Americans that like, annoy you the most? Like, is there any that you like -- if you feel comfortable sharing or like things... I know, like you kind of talked about like in Cap -- is it Capgras, the horror, short, like European things. And I've heard that from like, the European ideas of Native Americans and things is kind of wild sometimes.

TOMMY: Yeah, it totally is. I mean, I think, I think there's, there's just an overall, if not dehumanization then sub, some level of sub-humanization that's happened to us that we're lesser than, that we can't be smart. You know, there's this idea that we're, we have a weakness for drugs and alcohol that doesn't look at like why are we using these things? What are we coping with? Because it doesn't look at history, because the history is not provided. So I think those things bother me because, because of the way they dehumanize us. But you know, I could point to 100 different things. There's the diversity thing, like not allowing that we, we have different phenotypes. That's a huge spectrum of what humans look like. You know, 574 federally recognized tribes, it's a lot of different looks. And from different geographical regions, you're going to get a lot of different types of people. So I think that annoys me that people still stick to, like, you know, because I've been a public person for long enough that I've had obnoxious people tell me that I don't look Native to them. And, you know, I know that I'm half-white, and I have to live with what that means. But I also know that I look like a Native person because I look just like my dad and my dad looks like the most Native person you'll ever see in your life.

DANIEL: Yeah, I... yeah, being like a white-presenting Native to like, I have that. My dad's very, like, Native and like, when you like, when you see me in like a family picture, you can tell I'm related to everybody like and that's what matters to me and stuff like. But yeah, those like questions are just like, that was kind of like a question I wanted to ask you because like you go, you've been talking like, I bet he's heard, like, some of the worst things and all that stuff. But yeah, thank you for that.

TOMMY: Yeah, it's discouraging, sometimes to be, to have to be a public-facing figure and, and to face people's ignorance.

DANIEL: I feel like, I was talking to some friends. And I was like, I feel like starting a sentence with "there's over 500 nations" is starting to become a thing when you get asked questions and stuff. It's like, reminding people about the diversity and that we don't all "speak Native." Yeah, it's like...

SARA: But also, I was struck with what you said, when you said, the, "that you don't look Native to me." Well, but I just... that drives me insane when people have these preconceived notions about things and they expect the world to just like fall into place around their ideas. And if anything, going back to my whole thing with reading and experiencing other people's lives and thoughts, like, open your mind, right?

DANIEL: Yeah.

SARA: Okay, I'll get off my little... that's my, that's it for my soapbox, but like, don't do it. Don't have preconceived ideas of what other people should be. Okay. So, are there any other like Native-created media out there that you want to give voice to: films, visual art, music, podcasts, anything that you want to give a shoutout?

TOMMY: Let's say, okay, for film, Julian Brave NoiseCat. He's also from Oakland and he just put out a documentary that won a big award, I think, the Director Award at Sundance. It's called Sugarcane and it goes into the residential schools in Canada. And that would be one that I would recommend in film. Morgan Talty, who wrote Night of the Living Rez, is a short story collection that came out a couple of years ago. He's got a novel called Fire Exit that's coming out in a couple of months. And there's a, there's a musician that was on Reservation Dogs. Everyone should go watch Reservation Dogs. It's gotten a lot of amazing praise and attention, but I still think everybody, I think a lot of people that know about it haven't necessarily watched it in its entire three seasons. And it's just a masterpiece. I'll just stop right there.

Samantha Crane, Samantha Crane is an amazing musician. Her music has been featured on the show Love and Fury by Sterlin Harjo that you already mentioned. Highlights, Micah P. Hinson who also is featured on the, on the Reservation Dogs show. If you look at like the soundtrack for Reservation Dogs, in all three seasons there's a ton of music that gets highlighted by Sterlin Harjo and whoever else the music, musical supervisor is.

DANIEL: You've done such a great job of promoting like Native musicians and stuff, like I just saw Vincent Neil Emerson. And he will like, you'll see him on Instagram wearing a Viennese shirt or whatever. And like, I actually used to like, back when I went to Oklahoma State, Samantha Crane was like kind of up, she was in the scene, like the college music scene. So that's how I got introduced her. And one time I remember being like this like indie music festival in the high school auditorium. And it was like all the local bands. I remember she was like talking over like having stage fright with her friends. Like one of her friends, she was like having, she was going on and she was very nervous. And now like, every time I see her in Rez Dogs, she just did the movie, Erica Tremblay's Fancy Dance, she did the score for that. And I was like, "This is so awesome because it's like, this person I saw, like, in a very vulnerable moment early in her career is now like, succeeding. And it's really cool." So yeah.

TOMMY: Yeah, totally.

SARA: We all have to start somewhere, I guess. Right? Not me. I'm not creative at all.

DANIEL: Is there any Native rappers that you have found? I've been like trying to find good Native rappers and like, I love the MF Doom references in There There and stuff. So I was like, was there any that you're into?

TOMMY: Mato Wayuhi, he's like, does all the music for Reservation Dogs.

DANIEL: Okay.

TOMMY: And he also, he also raps.

DANIEL: Cool.

TOMMY: I just did an event in Oakland with Mike Bone. You know, the, the twins from the show?

DANIEL: Yeah, I saw them in a Native boxing match a long time ago.

TOMMY: Oh, nice.

DANIEL: I was not prepared for them to be the halftime show. And I was like, "What is this?"

TOMMY: Yeah, they're amazing. But I, I don't have that many Native rappers that I listened to otherwise.

SARA: Okay, so when... before we started, you indicated that you may not be able to list some authors that you want to recommend. But I'm still gonna throw it out to you to see if you changed your mind. If not, we'll just --

TOMMY: I mean, I can definitely say that everyone should go read. Louise Erdrich, all of her work. Natalie Diaz. They both just won Pulitzers in 2019. Oscar Hokeah wrote a book called Calling For a Blanket Dance. And that was really important.

DANIEL: Yeah.

SARA: Yes.

TOMMY: That was a really important book for me while I was writing Wandering Stars because he does this generational family line thing. And that really kind of, I felt like he gave me permission to do something that I wasn't sure about. So you know, and then Morgan Talty's got a book coming out. Brendan Basham was a student of mine. And now he's got a book out, Swim Home to the Vanished is the name of that one. So there's a lot of good books out there. There's the first ones that come to mind. There's a lot. If you, if you Google... oh, Waubgeshig Rice has a book called Moon of the Turning Leaves. He's a First Nations author. And that just, we actually shared a publication date. And Ned Blackhawk has a nonfiction book called Rediscovery of America that also shared a publication date with me.

DANIEL: Oh, cool.

SARA: That's awesome. I think we should rerecord that question though, because you had so many of them. So I think that's great.

DANIEL: Yeah.

SARA: You need to believe in yourself. Telling Tommy Orange that he needs to believe in himself. Anyway, that kind of takes us to the end of our episode. This was awesome. Thank you so much for giving us some of your time.

DANIEL: Thank you so much for being on our show, Tommy. I guess that's it, that makes it a wrap and --

SARA: That's a wrap.

DANIEL: Thank you for listening to another episode of Read.

SARA: Return.

SARA AND DANIEL: Repeat.

TOMMY: Repeat!

SARA: We're so good. Okay, well, thanks, Tommy.

DANIEL: Have a good one.

TOMMY: Thank you.

VOICEOVER: Did you know that the Wichita Public Library has a wealth of local history resources that you can use? From old yearbooks to newspaper archives to genealogy databases, you can find it all here. Located on the second floor of the Advanced Learning Library, our knowledgeable staff can help you with every task from finding newspaper articles that made Wichita history to researching your family tree. For more information, visit wichitalibrary.org/Research/LocalHistory.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: I can't believe we got to talk to the Tommy Orange. That was so awesome.

SARA, VOICEOVER: I was going into the interview thinking, "Oh, it's fine. I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna be nervous. He's just a guy." I think I was nervous.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Yeah, I was a little nervous. Yeah, I thought it was kind of like, I think this is the biggest guest we've had. And just like he's a chill dude.

SARA, VOICEOVER: He's a chill dude.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: And also I, you know, we didn't get to go outside during the eclipse. But I feel like we had a good awesome once-in-a lifetime experience anyway, so because we recorded this during the eclipse.

SARA, VOICEOVER: That's a really good way to look at it. Yeah, for sure.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: I felt like I was like, "Hey, I got to talk to a cool author rather than stand outside and stare at the sun." [SARA LAUGHS]

We were both looking at stars.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Oh, nice!

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: All righty.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Thank you, just a huge thank you to Tommy Orange for joining us for Read. Return. Repeat. It was a real joy to have you on the podcast.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: A list of the books discussed in today's episode can be found in the accompanying show notes. To request any of the books heard about in today's episode, visit wichitalibrary.org or call us at (316) 261-8500.

SARA, VOICEOVER: This has been a production of the Wichita Public Library and a big thanks goes out to our production crew and podcast team.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: To participate in the ReadICT reading challenge, please visit wichitalibrary.org/readict. Stay connected with other ReadICT participants on the ReadICT Challenge Facebook page. Find out what's trending near you, post book reviews, look for local and virtual events, and share book humor with like-minded folks. To join the group, search #ReadICT challenge on Facebook and click join.

SARA, VOICEOVER: And don't forget to log your books in the reading tracker app, Beanstack. Each month you log a book in the challenge, you're eligible to win fun prizes. If you need assistance signing up or logging books, give us a call, reach us on chat, or stop by your nearest branch.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: You can follow this podcast through the Spotify app or stream episodes on whatever platform you listen to podcasts on. If you liked what you heard today, be sure to subscribe and share with all your friends.

SARA AND DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Bye!