We are more resilient than we are traumatized. Art keeps us thriving, not just surviving. I try to make room for other Native artists. Every time someone steps forward, it makes room for others to step forward.

—Marcie Rendon

 

Growing up in the  Red River Valley.

I had a fine childhood until I was six. There were struggles–we were extremely poor–but I was happy.  I was with my family. We lived in the country. I ran in the woods, played by the river, explored the natural world.

In first grade I went into foster homes. It was life in hell for the next twelve years. It is not something I like to talk about. I survived. I learned a lot.

I started writing early. I learned how to read before I started school. I remember in first grade sitting in the back of  the classroom, writing little stories and illustrating them.  But I never thought about being a writer. As a teenager I wrote poetry. That was a way to make sense of the world around me, keep myself sane. I also had a very good understanding of the English language. I loved to diagram sentences. I did well when there were writing assignments. If I could write it, I would get an A.

I was a compulsive reader. Anything and everything. One of my saving graces was the bookmobile. The bookmobile librarian in sixth grade tried to steer me to a younger section. Finally she realized I needed more. Pretty soon she was bringing books she thought might interest me. I was always looking for books that had Native people. Of course there were none.

 

Moorhead State and the American Indian Movement

I didn’t know it was possible for a Native American to be a writer. We were always told that to serve our people we had to go to school and become a social worker, doctor, lawyer or teacher. Jerry Buckanaga had started the Pine Point Experimental School on the White Earth Reservation. The idea was to help Native youth get a college education so they could go back and teach.

I was at Moorhead State from 1970–1975. In 1971-72 we took over the Dean’s office to demand an American Indian Studies Department.  Our first American Indian Studies professor was David Beaulieu. We created the first Native student organization.We demanded and got control over our financial aid money. I double-majored in Criminal Justice and American Indian Studies.

There were fourteen Native students who started in the department. Five of us graduated. Among us was Erma Vizener, and Eileen Salines, who was Director of Migizi. Bug McCarther was there too, but he did not hang out with us. He became a tribal chairman.

We had the first powwow at Moorhead State. We brought in AIM leaders, Clyde Bellecourt,  Dennis Banks, and Bill Means. Floyd Westerman sang. There was a protest at NDSU against the “Fighting Sioux”name. I didn’t go, but it seems like all the other Indians went.

There was another time when we went to Leech Lake together. Russell Means was there, and so was the John Birch Society. They were shooting at us! Russell asked “Who is ready to die for the people?”  One woman said, “Not me.”

These experiences shaped my sense of who I am as a Native person, the idea of being a sovereign people. That whole period shaped Indian country and Indian history.

College During the Anti-War and Civil Rights Movements 

We were conflicted about the Vietnam War. We opposed the war but we had relatives that were overseas. We didn’t want to go against what they were doing. I took a lot of political science classes where the discussion was focused on the War. I remember Professor Estes, predicting the next big war would be fought over oil in the Persian Gulf.

I was thinking about law school, which is why I chose a Criminal Justice major. In my classes I would ask questions about tribal law and treaty law. None of our professors knew anything about it. There wasn’t the body of knowledge that there is now. Vine Deloria was the initiator of those conversations and that research. He came to Moorhead and spoke shortly after Wounded Knee.

Project E-Quality was bringing African Americans to campus. The college had done this anti-racism training called Triple T, in conjunction with Concordia College. They divided participants into groups of police, poor people, wealthy people—trying to replicate an oppressive system. The Indians looked at the process and said, “This is insane.”

 

 Working with AIM in Minneapolis

While I was in college, I  worked summers at the Anishinaabe Longhouse on Newton Avenue in North Minneapolis. It was started by John Poupart— a halfway house for men being released from prison. These ex cons would pick me up at the bus stop to protect me on my walk to the halfway house.

After graduating, my husband and I moved to Vermilion, South Dakota so he could get his Master’s in Indian Ed. Then we moved back up to Pine Point. We separated. I had one child and was pregnant with another and I needed a job.

In the mid 70s, AIM was deeply involved in the education and support for incarcerated Indians. I participated in a march from Minneapolis to the Stillwater Prison they organized, that ended with a Powwow.  When I left my husband I moved to Minneapolis and got a job at the Heart of the Earth Survival School, working in their prison program. I did that from 1978-1985. We taught adult basic ed, GED, and pre-release — getting people ready to leave prison. We worked at Stillwater, St. Cloud, Lino Lakes, Shakopee, and Oak Park Heights. At Stillwater, Jimmy Jackson was a spiritual adviser. He would go in and do pipe ceremonies, naming ceremonies. We were going in five days a week, a different prison every day. I liked the work. It was never the same job from day to day.  One of the things that was hard was you would work with someone, they would be released, and six months they would be back. But it was worthwhile work.

 

Living in Phillips 

I always lived in Phillips. When I first came down the whole neighborhood was like a reservation in the city. I knew everyone.

In 1986 there was a serial killer targeting Native women in the neighborhood. AIM Patrol reactivated and began watching for women leaving bars alone. I quit drinking in 1975 so I wasn’t part of the Franklin Ave bar scene at the time, but it was scary. That was when Southeast Asian immigrants were coming into Phillips. I remember a conversation after an AA meeting. We were wondering, how does he know who is Indian? From the back at least, Southeast Asian and Native women with short stature and long black hair, look alike. And at night… We concluded that the killer must have known his victims.  That we must know him. That was scary.

 

Becoming a Writer

I have always written. I was writing poetry, not sharing it with anyone, when my youngest daughter was born in 1983. I joined a midwife community and Native women’s dance group. We created a moon calendar and put my poetry in it.  I got a call from someone in California, looking for a home birth story written by a native woman. I said sure, I’ll write it—just to get her off the phone. I was extremely shy.

I forgot all about it. Months later she called again. “Still waiting for that story. The deadline is this week.”

I sent her a long-hand essay. It got published.  I don’t know if I got paid. After that I started submitting some of my birth poems to places that had seen the calendar. I would get maybe ten dollars.

At that time I was working with adolescent sex offenders. It was full time and then went to part time, because I had the three kids. From there I went to work at Golden Valley Health Center as a therapist in the first sexual addiction treatment program in the world. The hospital went under and I got a year’s severance pay. I was distraught at the time, about an ectopic pregnancy, about the realization that I could not have anymore children. I didn’t keep a regular journal, but around that time I wrote in a notebook: “All I want to do is take care of my children, sew and write.”

I spent my severance year writing. As it got closer to the end of that year, and I realized I needed a job, I went to The Circle newspaper and said, “Give me a story. If you like it you can print it, if you don’t, you can pretend you never saw me.” That is how I began writing for community newspapers. I wrote for Colors Magazine. I wrote about racism in Parenting.

In 1991 I saw Margo Kane — a Native woman from Canada — do a one-woman show at Intermedia Arts. No one ever told me these were things I could do as a writer! I started performing on stage, reading my poetry at Patrick’s Cabaret, and Intermedia Arts. I created a performance piece.  I discovered I could do it, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I preferred to write.

Around that same Juanita Espinoza began the Native Arts Circle. Gary Farmer was coming into town and he wanted a radio play. Juanita said to me, “Why don’t you write a radio play so he can workshop it.” I wrote something. He never mentioned it. I can only guess it was that bad.

But then we did this piece at the Playwrights’ Center.  Buffy Sedlachek worked with me for a year. That was how I got my first play produced. It was performed at Child’s Play Theater in collaboration with Pillsbury House Theater. I remember waking up and my name and picture were in three newspapers. It freaked me out. It was scary for me, to be that visible.

Since then, I have been writing anything and everything, and seeking publication. I worked on crime novels. They are hidden in my garage. They are really bad, but they are the fore-runners of my mystery series.

I did a Native American journalism internship at the U of M with Art Coulson and then I interned at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. I learned I could never sit in a newsroom.

I got a writing mentorship through The Loft with Jim Northrup doing poetry. I remember him saying, “The only way you are going to make any money writing poetry is to learn how to read it in public.” That pushed me to work on my performance skills. He became my mentor.

I could see that what I was writing was resonating with Native people. Cheryl Walsh, a Belleville photographer, wanted to do a book about Powwows. Lerner Publications said they would do it if they could find a Native writer. I said I would do it. That is how I got my first children’s book.

 

Confronting Limitations in Indigenous Writing

A woman who was doing a book about literary critique, put together a meeting of writers on Franklin Avenue. Mark Rolo was there. He said Native writers had the responsibility to write literature. “We need to aspire to be the next Hemingway.” I said, “Bullshit. I am going to write a romance novel. We are tired of novels in which the only Natives are tall, dark, silent, men for white women to fall for. We need a book for Native women.”

Just to get back at Mark Rolo, I wrote to Harlequin, got their synopsis, sent it in a draft. They said they liked the story line, but it lacked sexual tension. I have never been able to get back to it. Another book in the garage.

A New York publisher recently contacted me looking for a Native romance novel. I am writing another one. I am not good at it. It is not something I read. When I do read them I cringe. But we need every kind of book for us, where we can say this is Me.

 

Introduction to the Murder Mystery

In early 2000, I read an ad in the Loft newsletter; a woman was looking to start a murder mystery writers’ group. I got up the courage to go to the meeting. It was down at the Blue Moon Cafe. It was a group of mostly men. I was sitting there listening, thinking: they say write what you know—everyone is talking about serial killers—is there a serial killer in this room? The meeting was at night. I waited until everyone else left, ran to my car and took the back roads home.

I stayed with the group. The men all dropped out. We started meeting at Bab Lakey’s house. It was Ellen Hawley, Ida Swearingen and myself. I decided I wasn’t going to write crime. I started writing a book about a young woman who travels to Nashville to try to break into country western music. Then Cash appeared and said, “No, no, no. You follow me.” I started writing Murder on the Red River—wrote it straight through. As long as I listened, the story came out.

I sent Murder on the Red River to agents and publishers and endured five years of rejections. My writing group told me that most of the time the murder is at the beginning of the book. I moved it to the beginning, and kept the old version as well. My friend Debby Reese, who has an American Indian children’s literature blog, suggested Cinco Puntos Press. I sent them an email with the first version. They told me to move the murder to the first page, so I sent them the second version. Ultimately they decided they liked my first version better.  They also published Girl Gone Missing. They said they would like to see the next book.  Book three is almost done. I went on a writing retreat in July. I have the idea for book four.

I don’t outline. I sit down and write. I’ve got this series, some children’s books, a couple plays I want to get done. My plan is to keep writing! 

 

 Art at the Minnesota Capitol 

I am on the Governor’s Commission for Art at the Capitol, to see that there is more diversity in those vast gallery spaces. There are five Native people on the commission.

The racist historical pieces have all been moved into the same room and there are educational placards explaining why the material is problematic.  As long as there is discussion, I think that is good. In an ideal world people would have a better sense of what reality is, and would be able to recognize works that glorify and perpetuate racism.  Until that time, those works need explanation.

 

Advocate for Native Art

I am always thinking of how I can encourage other Native people to put their work out there. Just this weekend, I was doing a book signing, and there was a Native woman who is writing a romance novel. I gave her the contact information for the New York publisher.

People are not submitting their work. They fear rejection. You can’t get published if you don’t put yourself out there. Sometimes people want things to happen by magic. I encourage people to keep getting their work out there.

I just curated a show on TPT for three other Native artists. Art is…CreativeNativeResilience. We are more resilient than we are traumatized. Art keeps us thriving, not just surviving. I try to make room for other Native artists. Every time someone steps forward, it makes room for others to step forward.

I worked on a book about Native Artists in Minnesota with Ann Markusen, Professor of Economics at the Humphrey Institute. Ann is interested in how artists save local economies. There are so many Native artists, we could not possibly include them all in the book. There is all this gallery space in Minnesota. When the book came out so little Native work was on display. Now the Tweed has some things, MIA had a temporary exhibit of women artists, and the Walker, because of their own big mistake, just had a big exhibit with Delina White from Red Lake.

 

Humanity’s Climate Crisis

My other big thing is the climate. I’m thinking about the heat wave in India, the change in ecosystem around the Arctic. People’s lives are already disrupted. The earth will be here for a long time. It is human life that is going extinct if we don’t do something.

Every conversation around economy, race, genocide, has to be talked about in terms of eleven years—maximum. Things have to move a lot faster than what we believe to be humanly possible.  A lot of the things people want to see happen we are going to have to let go of. There isn’t time to be paid for all the grievances we have. We don’t have five or ten generations to solve all the issues that happened in the past 25 years, 50 years, 2000 years.

We need a solution for humanity. Native people around the world have a greater knowledge and understanding of how to address the global climate crisis. It makes sense to listen to Native People.

I think people should be looking at the places where they get scared, where they start behaving in inhumane ways. People need to make decisions about how to not do that. For example, I hate being cold. If the electrical system fails next year, I need to think about how I will react emotionally, without going out and attacking other people who are as cold as I am.

I was telling one group, “How are you going to react when the transportation system fails and you can’t get milk? Or almond milk?  There will be social unrest. How will you handle it?”  At some point I might write something about that.

 

Seven Generations and the Present Moment 

After everything I just said, I still think in seven generations and in the moment. I have this brand new great grand baby. Life is wonderful. It is amazing. Every single moment of every single day there is something to love, despite the hardships. I have this huge family, grandkids great grandkids. How do you get everyone putting their minds in a forward direction? That is what I think about.

 

Murder of George Floyd and Minneapolis Uprising June 10/2020

Feeling deep sorrow, knowing this is all happening on stolen land. For Indian people this is not our first pandemic and certainly not our first war.

Minneapolis Interview Project Explained.