Home

In Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit one section that particularly stuck out to me was "The Land and the People are Inseparable".  This section is about how, after moving to Tuscon from New Mexico, the narrator connects with the local tribe, the Yaqui, because everything about them makes the narrator feel at home.

The first thing that the narrator talks about are her surroundings.  She talks about the rattlesnakes that seem friendly and hospitable, the rocks by her house that are comforting to her.  She talks about all of these natural things that most of us may overlook if we're not looking for it--the little components that make home feel like home.

Next she talks about the feeling of home, how the community all being together really just hits hard for her.  The image she uses is that everyone walked out of their houses at the same time while she was driving through Old Pasqua to support a recently deceased community member's family.  They all walked towards the white hearse to show their support and to grieve together.  It really is a beautiful image and really sums up what a "home" should be like and feel like.

All of this really hits home for me.  I have never been uprooted like the Native Americans have been and are to this day, but I moved from New Orleans when I was 8 years old and still call it my "home".  It is the place I feel most comfortable, the place I feel most proud of, the place where I literally love everything and everyone I meet--from my great aunt to the newest stranger.  I take pride in that place.  Whenever I visit, it is like I never left. The entire community remembers when I was born, what my mother wore for her 16th birthday, the first time my brother and I learned how to ride a bike.  That is what "home" should feel like.

While I've been thinking about "home" I of course come back to the many ways that we've ripped this idea away from the American Indians.  We have put them on reservations, have bought and sold and destroyed their ancestral lands.  We have disrespected their way of life.  It is amazing that they can still form a sense of community amongst themselves at this point. To me, their belief in themselves and their way of life is inspiring and admirable.  In the face of losing what they were they have found a way to become something different and still very good.