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Yellow Medicine Review – Fall 2010

Volume 8

Fall 2010

Biannual

Sima Rabinowitz

“The Ancestors We Were Looking for We Have Become: International Queer Indigenous Voices,” is this issue’s special theme, guest edited by Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán. An impressive 260+ pages, the issue includes work by writers from numerous tribes and nations, including writers who originate from and/or have lived in the mainland United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, Sweden, Somalia, New Zealand, Palestine, Costa Rica, Croatia, South Australia, Kenya, Tonga, Nicaragua, Lesotho, Nigeria, Tibet, Afghanistan, Guahan, Fiji, and Canada. The majority are “mixed race” (a decidedly problematic term). Most are widely published. Many are activists and/or active in other arts (dance, photography, theater arts, etc.). Some self-identify as queer, others as gay, others as lesbian, others as bisexual, and others as transgender.

“The Ancestors We Were Looking for We Have Become: International Queer Indigenous Voices,” is this issue’s special theme, guest edited by Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán. An impressive 260+ pages, the issue includes work by writers from numerous tribes and nations, including writers who originate from and/or have lived in the mainland United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, Sweden, Somalia, New Zealand, Palestine, Costa Rica, Croatia, South Australia, Kenya, Tonga, Nicaragua, Lesotho, Nigeria, Tibet, Afghanistan, Guahan, Fiji, and Canada. The majority are “mixed race” (a decidedly problematic term). Most are widely published. Many are activists and/or active in other arts (dance, photography, theater arts, etc.). Some self-identify as queer, others as gay, others as lesbian, others as bisexual, and others as transgender.

Like the work of any large group of writers their writing reflects vastly different styles, tones, themes and forms. In some of the pieces, queer-indigenous identity takes center stage, as in Tenzin Mingyur Paldron’s short personal essay/statement “(What I Hope for when I say) ‘Queer Tibet,’” and in others, racial, ethnic, and sexual identity is one component of a larger or equally significant theme, as in Ami Mattison’s personal essay, “A History of Breathing,” about life as an adoptee.

I appreciate very much Andrew Jolivétte’s description of his work as “personal narrative” (“Disclosure, the Politics of Healing, and Survival in Two-Spirit Communities: A Personal Narrative”). This is an accurate description of much of the issue’s prose, short personal statements that have impact largely for the overwhelming emotion they manage to convey in a very brief space. I would not be unhappy to see this label applied to many pieces I find in other journals that are not really personal essays so much as short statements of personal expression.

Many pieces are bilingual, employing a technique of code switching (indigenous languages interspersed with English), beginning with an indigenous language and switching to English, or alternating lines. Some pieces are English translations of work created originally in indigenous languages. I was moved by Luna Maia’s poem “In the Ramada” which expresses the importance of a connection to one’s native language:

I left the pueblo
Yaqui deer songs in my head.
I inserted Yaqui words that I knew the meanings of;
I didn’t want to forget our rhythm,
in case someday
it would be my turn.

In her personal narrative, “The Life, Loves, and Adventures of Zelwa the Halfie,” Randa Jarrar writes “All I’ve ever wanted was to feel whole.” There isn’t a piece among the dozens here that doesn’t somehow seem to bring us all one word closer to achieving that essential goal.
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