lystn

Memory is incalculably important to human culture and society—in fact, memory is the conceptual basis of Existence in the present--but to Indigenous American peoples, the importance is denied them. To a very large extent, a certain key memory is not existent for them. It is non-existent to them because it is the memory of the European invasion, occupation, and conquest of the Americas that cannot be openly reconstructed by them so it can be put on display publically for public discourse. This key memory has to do with European invasion and conquest of the Americas, i.e., the lands now known as the continents of North and South America that consist of the lands and the social-cultural-governance systems of the Indigenous peoples who live on the invaded and conquered lands and whose descendents continue to live on them. Vast amounts of Indigenous lands were violently stolen and untold millions of Indigenous peoples were left homeless and the social-cultural-governance systems were dismantled. Literally an untold amount of destruction was wrought. And this memory is not existent because it is denied in many and various ways by domineering Euro-Americans who now are the majority population of North and South America. While a portion of memory of European invasion and conquest is allowed in grand gestures of condescension and even allowed for Indigenous peoples to address to a degree, there has never been adequate redress consisting of true recognition of legal governmental sovereignty that assures Indigenous peoples full recognition they were initially the original and absolute sovereign human stewards of the Americas before the invasion, occupation, and theft and destruction of their lands and way of life. When Euro-Americans have recognized, mostly in condescension, that Indigenous peoples—usually addressed and “recognized” by the misnomer “Indians”—were and are the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas they have done so in an obligatory way that has had no formal internationally legal effect. Instead, that recognition has been dismally minimal and that style and manner of recognition has been rejected in the greater part by Indigenous American peoples. The effect has resulted in Indigenous Americans literally having no memory of their original, overall sovereignty over the continental lands now known as North and South America. The colonial condescension is rejected and its memory, if any, is also. Ortiz is a distinguished Professor of Indigenous Literature at Arizona State University, a native of Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, a poet, fiction writer, essayist and storyteller. He is the author of over twenty books on Indigenous liberation and de-colonization, poetry, short fiction, creative non-fiction, and children’s literature. His publications include Woven Stone, Out There Somewhere, from Sand Creek, After and Before the Lightning, The Good Rainbow Road, Men on the Moon, and others. "Memory, History, and the Present," a long poem. He is currently at work with Gabriele M. Schwab on a work of memory—for lack of a better term--titled Children of Fire, Children of Water. His courses of study focus on decolonization of Indigenous people's land, culture, and community. With literary perspective as a guide, research interests include cultural, social, political dynamics of Indigenous peoples of North, Central, and South America. Ortiz's publications in poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, essay, and children's literature reflect his literary perspective across a range of his varied, active engagement and involvement in contemporary Indigenous life and literature. His publications, research, varied experience and intellectual participation is the basis of his engaging approach to the study of-involvement-engagement with Indigenous literature and its place in the canon of world literatures.