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A review by bbqxaxiu
How We Go Home: Voices from Indigenous North America by Sara Sinclair
4.0
i really liked this book. it contains a collection of interviews, essays, and a historical timeline on indigenous america.
re: the interviews - i enjoyed hearing from indigenous perspectives, and i liked that all the people interviewed were really different. one person spoke about their experience navigating the residential schooling system, another about organizing to combat the epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women, another about navigating the carceral system as a youth, another about their seasonal way of life (i.e. moving from place to place with the seasons, in order to live off the land) etc.
re: the essays - they covered everything from the physical and mental health of indigenous communities, contemporary issues, intergenerational trauma/historical trauma, disproportionate rates of incarceration and homelessness, etc. i found this section very informative.
re: the historical timeline - ok, this part was really cool. it was cool how the author broke down the history of indigenous america and contextualized it with treaties european colonizers coercively made with the indigenous populations in order to cement their control over the land and settler colonialism. it was cool hearing about how indigenous people view land and their relationship to the land, and how that differs from how european/white people view land...like how the concept of "owning" land simply does not exist in the indigenous belief system. which i mean, makes so much sense lmao. like "owning" land is such a colonist/imperialist/capitalist concept. u cant own nature with a piece of paper, boy bye lolz. and this also ties into the individualism of european/white cultures...like ofc in a culture where there is such a heavy emphasis on individualism, you would want to "own" something. but in a culture that emphasizes community (so like...every other culture besides western culture lmfao), there is no need to "own" something—because it is shared by and belongs to everyone.
finally, a quote that i really liked from one of the essays: "trauma is an expression on our genes.if there is something that has been tagged on our dna because of trauma, then that stress response could be tagged onto our children's and grandchildren's dna, as a trait. but i tell people that if trauma is in our genes, then so is surviving. and so is resilience. and so is healing." thats factssssss
re: the interviews - i enjoyed hearing from indigenous perspectives, and i liked that all the people interviewed were really different. one person spoke about their experience navigating the residential schooling system, another about organizing to combat the epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women, another about navigating the carceral system as a youth, another about their seasonal way of life (i.e. moving from place to place with the seasons, in order to live off the land) etc.
re: the essays - they covered everything from the physical and mental health of indigenous communities, contemporary issues, intergenerational trauma/historical trauma, disproportionate rates of incarceration and homelessness, etc. i found this section very informative.
re: the historical timeline - ok, this part was really cool. it was cool how the author broke down the history of indigenous america and contextualized it with treaties european colonizers coercively made with the indigenous populations in order to cement their control over the land and settler colonialism. it was cool hearing about how indigenous people view land and their relationship to the land, and how that differs from how european/white people view land...like how the concept of "owning" land simply does not exist in the indigenous belief system. which i mean, makes so much sense lmao. like "owning" land is such a colonist/imperialist/capitalist concept. u cant own nature with a piece of paper, boy bye lolz. and this also ties into the individualism of european/white cultures...like ofc in a culture where there is such a heavy emphasis on individualism, you would want to "own" something. but in a culture that emphasizes community (so like...every other culture besides western culture lmfao), there is no need to "own" something—because it is shared by and belongs to everyone.
finally, a quote that i really liked from one of the essays: "trauma is an expression on our genes.if there is something that has been tagged on our dna because of trauma, then that stress response could be tagged onto our children's and grandchildren's dna, as a trait. but i tell people that if trauma is in our genes, then so is surviving. and so is resilience. and so is healing." thats factssssss