Rediscovering America through an Indigenous Lens

Speaker: Deborah Jackson Taffa

In a nation currently debating what it means to “belong,” how does it feel to be a tribally enrolled citizen with ancestral ties to the Indigenous concept of democracy? Join Deborah Jackson Taffa, author of the 2024 National Book Award Finalist Whiskey Tender—an intellectually vulnerable memoir that has been described by the Washington Post as “a distinctly American book for a country afraid of its own history”—as she speaks to oft forgotten histories. Deborah will address the impact of various governmental policies on her family over three generations. From the nuclear colonization of her ancestral homelands to Indian boarding schools and the Indian Relocation Act, she will chronicle her coming-of-age in the context of a question: is America still, or has it ever been, a meritocracy? By rediscovering American history through an Indigenous lens, she proposes we take broad steps toward healing as a nation.

An artist and arts’ administrator raised in a family of tribal politicians; Deborah is the director of the MFA in Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM. Her memoir, Whiskey Tender, is a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award in Nonfiction, as well as named to several 2024 best lists at outlets such as Esquire, Oprah Daily, ELLE, and The Washington Post. With fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America, MacDowell, and the NY State Summer Writers Institute, Deborah received her MFA in creative nonfiction writing in Iowa City. A citizen of the Kwatsaan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo, her work can be found at The Huff Post, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Boston Review, PBS, Salon, and other outlets. Deborah believes in the transformative power of storytelling to bring communities together. In her writing, she seeks to overturn cultural scripts and damaging stereotypes about Indigenous people. Her assertion: by rediscovering American history through an Indigenous lens, she purposes we take broad steps toward healing as a nation.

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