This episode features author Mike Wilson (Tohono O'odham) and co-author Tony Lucero who wrote the book https://uncpress.org/book/9781469675589/what-side-are-you-on/ In our conversation Mike shares pieces of his life story and Tony talks about his...

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Season 2

This episode features author Mike Wilson (Tohono O'odham) and co-author Tony Lucero who wrote the book "What Side Are You On? A Tohono O'odham Life Across Borders." In our conversation Mike shares pieces of his life story and Tony talks about his interest in not only Mike's experiences, but also the history of the work he's been involved in overtime. Mike spent his childhood in the small town of Ajo, Arizona, which is located northwest of the Tohono O'odham Nation in Southern, AZ. Living throughout the Southern Arizona border, Mike felt a responsibility to provide water stations along the border region on the Tohono O'odham Nation to provide a drinking source for migrants passing through tribal lands to help saves lives. In our conversation he also shares stories about O'odham life during the early 1960s when he and his family lived in Tucson, they enjoyed spending time with family and friends listening to live music at the Tucson Indian Center and playing records at a friends house with other O'odham kids. The discussion covered many things from politics, to O'odham lifeways, and music.

Co-Author Tony Lucero, is the Chair and Professor of the Comparative History of Ideas Department at the University of Washington, Seattle. He shares his thoughts about why he became interested in Mike's life story and how the work Mike was doing throughout the border was an important one to share with his own students. Many times Tony invited Mike to be a guest speaker in his classes and it was Tony who suggested to Mike about writing a book!

Since the release of the book Mike and Tony have been on a book tour, which is where I got to meet them both in person when they presented at the Mission Garden in Tucson just this passed spring.

Helpful Links:
The Latinx Project - Book Panel: What Side are You On? A Tohono O'odham Life Across Borders
NAU discussion explores Tohono O’odham border issues
Global Visionaries: Tony Lucero
From Green Beret to Border Human Rights Activist: A Podcast with Mike Wilson and José Antonio Lucero
Tohono O’Odham activist plays himself in this new movie about migrants crossing the Sonoran Desert

WEBVTT

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For full disclosure. The information discussed in this podcast is

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based on the views and experiences of the guests and

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the hosts. The content here is for general educational purposes only.

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Have you ever heard stories of autumn recollecting their memories

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of living in the Motown era? I guess I never

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really thought about it, except for the one time I

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asked my late grandma Annie who her favorite singer or

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musician was growing up, and she said Elvis Presley, which

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is not a part of the Motown era, in case

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you're wondering. But over the years, in hearing so many

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autumn telling their stories from different time periods in various

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forms such as writing in person, voice recording, video, recording,

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newspaper articles, I learned that autumn have always evolved with

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the times and adapted to mainstream society, from the music

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they listened to to the clothes they wore.

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Not saying that.

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It was easy, Authom always had to fight fight for

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certain rights, whether it was for land and water rights,

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the right to vote, fighting against opposing infrastructure projects, border issues,

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resource development, and other political challenges that the nation still

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faces today. We as Native people have a rich yet

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complex history of evolution from cultural exchanges, diverse environments, and

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of course European colonization.

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The interview you are about to hear.

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Is about a book which I would say is a

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great example of just that. It explores storytelling from the

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life of Mike Wilson on Autumn and his life experiences

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and stories told by his elder Hodgen over time, and

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then of course him experiencing his own personal journey in

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life up until now, and the fact that he had

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an opportunity to write about his life story is amazing.

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The more books and storytelling and authors we have, the

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more authentic our history is. I hope you enjoy this

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interview featuring Mike Wilson and his co author, mister Tony.

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You are listening to on Autumn Young Voices podcast. I'm

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your host, Tina Andrew.

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Thank you so much Tina for the invitation for Tony

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and I Mike Wilson here. Tony Lucetto is my co author.

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But I just want to thank you for including me

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in your all Them Young Voices for a seventy something

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aut them. I take that as a compliment. Thank you

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very much. I'm authom on my dad's side and on

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my mom's side. I'm also Kashan, but I grew up

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identifying as Autum first and foremost. I was born at

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Center Beer in nineteen forty nine, but I was raised

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in Aho. After the fourth grade, we moved to South Tucson,

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and so I went to the public school system in

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Tucson from the fifth grade through high school, and then

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I started at the U of A. And that's as

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far as I got. I started. And yeah, So I

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had a military career, and I had a small, a

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short teaching career, and after the military, a short teaching

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career in San Antonio, Texas. But my parents were getting

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old in the early nineties, and I thought, well, if

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you expect to spend any time with your parents, you

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better go home. So I moved back to Tucson in

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ninety seven. And my co author is Josse Antonio Lussetto.

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He hales from the town the border town of El Paso, Texas.

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A man who needs no introduction.

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No, I think you're confusing me with you, my.

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No.

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I wanted to thank you as well. Tina.

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It's really great to be here. We're big fans of

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the podcast, so it's a real honor to be in

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conversation with you. As Mike said, I'm just I'm just

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from down the road in al Paso, Texas. I grew

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up in all passunsu Huades, Chihuahua. Both of my parents

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from Mexico. I'm a Chicano a professor. I teach at

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the University of Washington, Seattle. My academic field as Indigenous

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Studies and Borderland Studies, and I've been at the University

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of Washington for about eighteen years. I'm the chair of

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a department called the Comparative History of Ideas, and I

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also teach in International studies, American Indian Studies, and geography.

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And it's been a great treat to work on this

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project with Mike over the last decade or so.

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Thank you both so much for the opportunity to share

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your guys story with his book, and thank you so

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much for reaching out. And I think it's an important

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narrative to the Autumn life. And I was really happy

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to see just even the title in itself a thaw

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on all of them life across borders and we all

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have a story, especially even though I'm sure our Passo

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was like the boorters right there. So I got a

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chance to read some of your book and just what

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I have read, it's been really interesting as a young

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person to learn about what the life was like in

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the nineteen twenties, nineteen forties, nineteen fifties, sixties and just

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imagining what that was. You know, I'm not sure like

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for young people when we think far back, how what

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like we were still in the times?

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You know, it was still the times.

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We're dressing more contemporary like what those times were. It

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was like we weren't what other as far as like

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historical pictures of us by the water and harvesting and

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doing all that stuff. Time we were evolving with the times.

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That's I guess that's what my point is with that

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we were evolving with the times, and just to hear

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and learn more about these areas, these familiar places Aho,

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Arizona and here in Tucson, South Tucson was just an

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interesting what was happening even as young people like yourself

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back then, what you all were doing as young people

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with listening to music, listening to records, hanging out with

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each other, where the families and the parents trusted each

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other and that sense of community was just there and

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it was exciting even with television you know, spending time

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at someone's house watching TV for hours, because not everybody

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had a TV in their home back then neither, so

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those things were just really interesting to me. And it

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reminded me a lot of my own mom because she

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told those similar stories where she would go to a

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relative house who had a TV and enjoy watching TV.

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It was just really cool to learn about the lifestyle

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of an autumn. But what this book really to me

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at least, it really is your life story because it

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starts from the beginning and just going through different stages

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in your life. And you've accomplished and done so much

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in life. Even from up to what I've read, it

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just seems like it's a lot, and you're still doing

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what you're doing and still accomplishing certain things. And you

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accomplished publishing a book telling the autumn narrative, telling the

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autumn perspective from a community member who's lived a life,

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and I really appreciate that. So you said that you've

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both known each other for some years now, what made

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you decide that you wanted to write this book?

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Mike, Well, it was really Tony's idea. Now we met

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here in Tucson at a conference two thousand, I believe,

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and he invited me to lecture to some of his

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students in Seattle. So about five years ago we were

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having a conversation and he said, Mike, every time we

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came to Seattle, or every time I came to Tucson,

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every time we talked, I interviewed you. I recorded everything.

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I have so much recorded material. We He didn't say

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I have. He said, we have enough material to write

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a book. Are you interested? And I jumped at the

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offer because as a public speaker, over the last twenty

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five years, after my presentations, many people have come up

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and said, Mike, are you writing this stuff down? I said, no,

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why Mike, You're a storyteller. You need to write your

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stories down. And at the time I said, who cares?

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Thank you?

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But really who cares? And so I never was interested

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in writing a story. And I guess maybe it comes

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from that authorm tradition that you don't speak highly of yourself,

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you don't promote yourself, you don't exalt yourself, you don't

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you raise yourself above the above anybody else. And so

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until Tony said, you know, are you interested? And I

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thought about it. I said, yeah, I've got you know,

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I've got some stories to tell. So that's how we

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started that. And thanks to his saving all the material,

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all those recordings, I mean everyone. So when the offer came,

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I jumped at the offer. Yeah.

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I just add a little bit more context. When we met,

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as Mike says, by chance here in two signed a

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meeting of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association when

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the annual congress was held here. And I had already

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known about Mike's work through the many documentaries he was in,

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especially the first one, Walking the Line, which is available

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on YouTube, and it's mostly the story of anti immigrant vigilantes,

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but Mike is really the kind of moral conscience of

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that film, showing the response from the social justice community

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and from an awumb perspective too about how the border

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migration policies are affecting life on the nation. So that

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I used that documentary in teaching for many years. So

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when I saw Mike, and this is you know, something

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that I kind of say often, I was starstruck because

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you know, for me, he was a celebrity. You know,

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he was Native Tom Cruise, you know, And so I said,

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you know, you got to come to U Dow, you

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got to come and talk to my students, and he did,

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and so we though some of those things we recorded

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with Mike's permission, and then there was again kind of

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a coincidence. I got invited to participate in a scholarly

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workshop on religion and politics, and Mike's life is really

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a lot about that, about the intersections of religion and politics,

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and I asked Mike, I said, hey, I'd love to

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work with you on this article to talk about how

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you know your journey through this religious life, and we'll

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get into more of the twist and turns of Mike's

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life in a little bit. And one of the things

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about Mike's activism was that it was a very lonely

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kind of activism. You know, Mike was putting out water

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on the reservation for twelve years for border crossers and

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doing it a lot.

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Of the times by himself.

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And I have a background and thinking in social movements

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and scholarship of social movements, and that's by definition collective,

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and so as a form of activism, it struck me

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as a really lonely and one of the religious scholars

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there he kind of broke it down for me, says,

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Mike is operating the prophetic mode, you know you're in.

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When you're working in the prophetic mode, you're speaking a

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bigger truth that often will create resistance in your local community.

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And that's why it looks that way it does. And

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I share this with Mike, and Mike said, well, if

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you want to call me prophetic, that's fine. I'm not

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going to call myself that, but I'll take it. And

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then the more we talked, the more we realized there

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was a lot more to the story. And that was

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the foundation for just hours of world history that we

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did both here in Tucson and in Seattle. And after

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enough time, we realized we had a lot of material

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and enough for a book, and that became We talked

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about how it could be this conversation between the archive

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of Mike's life and all of these academic texts about

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indigenous politics, about US foreign policy, about religion in the

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Indian country, and immigration politics as well.

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You know, as a young person.

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Growing up here in the southern region of Arizona, both

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in Tucson and on the on the nation, I feel like,

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I mean, I'm sure there was more a little bit

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of presence here and there, but for me, I feel

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like I remember like really seeing border patrol patrolling our row.

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I had to been like thirteen years old, so that

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might have been like nineteen ninety nine. I think around

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ninety eight ninety nine, And that's like my most accurate

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memory of like that's when I realized or knew like

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that theyre or were absolutely present, and never did I

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think that they were.

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They would still be here.

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And here I am, as you know, later in life,

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and it's just where it's gone to where it's at today.

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So it's always interesting to just learn about the different

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things that have happened over the years, the impacts that

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these border situations and militarization. And for me, in two

225
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thousand and twelve, around that time, I was in college

226
00:14:52.279 --> 00:14:57.679
and me and my group of friends in college, we

227
00:14:58.559 --> 00:15:02.080
did a little organizing surrounding border harassment because at the

228
00:15:02.120 --> 00:15:05.480
time it just seemed to be like really increasing and

229
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it was affecting a lot of people and families. And

230
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at the time they were also doing town halls, which

231
00:15:11.519 --> 00:15:14.559
they were only giving people five minutes to talk, and

232
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so we decided to do a march and down through Cells,

233
00:15:20.159 --> 00:15:23.720
starting at the Bashes parking lot and walking to the

234
00:15:23.759 --> 00:15:26.879
White House in Cells. We just wanted to make a

235
00:15:26.919 --> 00:15:30.200
statement as young people, and we were also tired of

236
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the harassment and what we were hearing and experiencing ourselves.

237
00:15:34.879 --> 00:15:37.759
So I've been in a lot of different situations when

238
00:15:37.759 --> 00:15:40.399
it comes to border patrol as well when it comes

239
00:15:40.440 --> 00:15:43.159
to border It's a story that I want to keep.

240
00:15:43.519 --> 00:15:49.000
Is definitely the foundation of the podcast. What prompted me

241
00:15:49.200 --> 00:15:53.639
to create a podcast was when they started talking about

242
00:15:53.639 --> 00:15:58.960
the integrated fixed towers in twenty sixteen and they had

243
00:15:58.960 --> 00:16:04.279
the environmental impact statement out, and what we were hearing

244
00:16:04.279 --> 00:16:07.519
from community members was that voter Patrol was telling them

245
00:16:08.600 --> 00:16:12.240
that these structures were going to be just temporary, but

246
00:16:12.320 --> 00:16:16.080
yet in the impact statement it was permanent. It was

247
00:16:16.279 --> 00:16:19.159
clearly black and white there it was. But they were

248
00:16:19.159 --> 00:16:24.200
telling community members other wise other things that they wanted

249
00:16:24.240 --> 00:16:28.879
to hear, I guess. So that's why I was like, Okay,

250
00:16:28.960 --> 00:16:32.519
well let's find let's utilize this platform and we'll share

251
00:16:32.519 --> 00:16:34.799
our stories. And it's just kind of evolved into what

252
00:16:34.919 --> 00:16:38.600
it is today. But this topic has always been an

253
00:16:38.639 --> 00:16:42.679
important to me and to share, and so I want

254
00:16:42.720 --> 00:16:46.159
to get a little bit more into into the work

255
00:16:46.200 --> 00:16:50.240
that you've done surrounding the waters. Mike and you can

256
00:16:50.279 --> 00:16:52.600
start wherever you'd like with that.

257
00:16:54.720 --> 00:17:00.120
Yeah, I started putting out water on the nation I

258
00:17:00.159 --> 00:17:03.279
think early two thousand and two. At that time I

259
00:17:03.320 --> 00:17:07.160
was a Presbyterian lead pastor at the church and Cells.

260
00:17:08.119 --> 00:17:11.799
But before I left Tucson to go to Cells, I

261
00:17:11.839 --> 00:17:17.119
was attending Humane Borders meetings here in Tucson, and Humane

262
00:17:17.200 --> 00:17:21.640
Borders then and now puts burrows of water out in

263
00:17:21.720 --> 00:17:25.640
the desert. They've asked for and were denied permission to

264
00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:30.000
put out water burrows on the Throne autem Nation. So

265
00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:34.480
when I got to Cells and I was looking at

266
00:17:34.839 --> 00:17:38.880
what we called then and now the death Maps, and

267
00:17:38.960 --> 00:17:43.759
what it is is it's a colored map of southern

268
00:17:43.759 --> 00:17:47.680
Arizona of the Tucson sector of the United States Border Patrol,

269
00:17:47.839 --> 00:17:51.559
which includes the Throne autem Nation, and on it are

270
00:17:51.839 --> 00:17:56.680
red dots. Each dot shows where human remains were found

271
00:17:57.079 --> 00:18:02.880
undocumented migrants, where they died, and where the remains were

272
00:18:02.920 --> 00:18:07.960
identified or at least found. Humane Borders got that information

273
00:18:08.519 --> 00:18:12.880
from Pima County Office of Medical Examiner. Because when they

274
00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:16.920
remains were found, they were moved to Tucson, that became

275
00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:21.920
part of public knowledge. So Humane Borders got that information

276
00:18:22.920 --> 00:18:26.279
from the office of Medical Examiner, and at the end

277
00:18:26.319 --> 00:18:30.440
of every federal fiscal year they published the death Map.

278
00:18:30.880 --> 00:18:34.599
And this is probably nineteen ninety nine two thousand, I

279
00:18:34.680 --> 00:18:39.200
saw the very first iterations of the death Map, and

280
00:18:39.319 --> 00:18:43.839
to my embarrassment, as an authum, I saw there was

281
00:18:43.880 --> 00:18:49.279
a cluster of red dots in the Babequirie Valley as

282
00:18:49.319 --> 00:18:54.279
is traveling south to north, the north being Ajo Road

283
00:18:54.440 --> 00:18:58.680
being the northern edge of the Babequree Valley, immediately south

284
00:18:58.720 --> 00:19:03.519
of Ojo Road, there was a cluster of red dots.

285
00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:07.640
There were so many that they were overlapping each other.

286
00:19:08.119 --> 00:19:11.720
It looked like a cluster of grapes. There were so

287
00:19:11.839 --> 00:19:17.440
many migrants deaths in the Bubblicare Valley, and I knew

288
00:19:18.319 --> 00:19:22.960
that the social justice community at that time no more deaths.

289
00:19:23.799 --> 00:19:29.240
Samaritans of Tucson human borders, all of them were denied

290
00:19:29.279 --> 00:19:33.640
permission to put up water on the nation. And so

291
00:19:33.799 --> 00:19:35.759
when I got out there and I had in my

292
00:19:35.920 --> 00:19:41.880
hand this death map, I mean it was I was embarrassed.

293
00:19:42.240 --> 00:19:45.640
I was humiliated that on that map. I said this

294
00:19:45.720 --> 00:19:47.759
twenty five years ago, and I will say it now.

295
00:19:48.119 --> 00:19:52.279
I estimate that conservatively fifty percent of all migrant deaths

296
00:19:53.039 --> 00:19:55.359
are on tribal lends. So I thought it was my

297
00:19:55.519 --> 00:19:59.200
moral responsibility as a human being, as an authorm, and

298
00:19:59.319 --> 00:20:03.759
finally as a presbyterianly pastor, that I had to do

299
00:20:03.839 --> 00:20:08.759
something on tribal lends because the nation knew. Everybody knew

300
00:20:08.920 --> 00:20:12.359
that migrants were dying on tribal lens, but nobody was

301
00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:20.519
doing anything about it. The hospitals, fire departments, ems, the churches, nobody.

302
00:20:20.720 --> 00:20:23.359
They didn't want to talk about it, so they allowed

303
00:20:23.720 --> 00:20:27.680
migrant us to go on and on and on, and

304
00:20:27.720 --> 00:20:33.160
I said, I can't let that stand. You know, as authorm,

305
00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:37.039
we have the tradition of hospitality. As much as we can.

306
00:20:37.519 --> 00:20:41.480
We do offer food, water, and it's sometimes sheltered. I

307
00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:44.119
know that goes on in the nation. I know tribal

308
00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:46.880
members want to do more. But it finally got to

309
00:20:46.920 --> 00:20:51.200
a point after several years that the autumn people and

310
00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:56.440
the tribal police couldn't accommodate even if they wanted to.

311
00:20:57.440 --> 00:21:00.440
The sheer numbers of migrants crossing the nation per day.

312
00:21:01.079 --> 00:21:07.200
Police Department estimated maybe this is maybe two thousand and four,

313
00:21:07.319 --> 00:21:12.519
two thousand and five, that one thousand, five hundred undocumented

314
00:21:12.599 --> 00:21:17.000
migrants were crossing the nation daily. So where I was

315
00:21:17.039 --> 00:21:20.319
putting out water in the Barbakabe Valley, I would take

316
00:21:20.440 --> 00:21:23.759
on a weekend anywhere from six hundred to one thousand,

317
00:21:23.839 --> 00:21:27.519
three hundred gallons of water, and I couldn't keep up

318
00:21:27.839 --> 00:21:31.680
with the volume of water that was being consumed by migrants.

319
00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:37.200
They needed that water, and so I did that for

320
00:21:37.240 --> 00:21:40.000
twelve years, and then finally I got to the point

321
00:21:40.039 --> 00:21:43.279
where I realized the water was not being used anymore.

322
00:21:43.400 --> 00:21:47.759
And one of my friends from San Miguel, my dad

323
00:21:48.119 --> 00:21:53.279
was from posover chutuquehe on the Sonora side, and my

324
00:21:53.400 --> 00:21:55.960
friend said to me, Mike, you know you can't go

325
00:21:56.079 --> 00:22:00.960
back to your dad's wrench at Chuttoguoha. I said, He says,

326
00:22:01.039 --> 00:22:04.960
it's been overtaken by cartel, that your dad's house is

327
00:22:05.039 --> 00:22:09.640
now a storage warehouse for bales of marijuana and it's

328
00:22:09.640 --> 00:22:14.240
guarded by armed guards with eight forty seven's. So now

329
00:22:14.279 --> 00:22:19.799
I understood why my water was not being consumed after

330
00:22:19.880 --> 00:22:24.559
ten years, eleven years, because one of the cartels on

331
00:22:24.599 --> 00:22:28.720
the Mexican side was stopping the flow of migrants coming

332
00:22:28.759 --> 00:22:33.279
to the Barbecuee Valley. So for operational purposes, if you

333
00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:37.680
have a cartel, on the Mexican side controlling the ground,

334
00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:41.960
and you have the border patrol on the US side

335
00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:45.279
have an operational control of the land. So there were

336
00:22:45.279 --> 00:22:49.839
two barriers which were prevented migrants from coming through the

337
00:22:49.880 --> 00:22:55.279
Barbecue Valley. Therefore they weren't consuming my water. So I

338
00:22:55.400 --> 00:22:59.400
finally it realized. I said, you know, it's it's futile

339
00:23:00.119 --> 00:23:03.400
to stop putting it out water after twelve years.

340
00:23:03.759 --> 00:23:08.359
Wow, that's really interesting. And I had heard or known

341
00:23:08.799 --> 00:23:12.799
of you doing that with the water, and it was good.

342
00:23:12.880 --> 00:23:14.400
I always looked at it as a good thing because

343
00:23:14.400 --> 00:23:17.799
you're right. There are out them out there that do

344
00:23:18.559 --> 00:23:23.640
want to help, you know, and they if they have water,

345
00:23:23.799 --> 00:23:28.079
if they have some food, those exchanges do happen, and

346
00:23:28.440 --> 00:23:32.200
it's not that they're doing anything bad, and they're just

347
00:23:32.519 --> 00:23:36.519
feeding people who are starving and who are thirsty and

348
00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:39.640
letting them go on their way to wherever it is

349
00:23:39.680 --> 00:23:44.240
that they're heading to. These people, it's interesting and as

350
00:23:44.279 --> 00:23:46.640
a part of your book as well, going back to

351
00:23:46.720 --> 00:23:49.319
the book from what I had read in the beginning,

352
00:23:49.640 --> 00:23:54.480
you talked a lot about your upbringing in Aho, and

353
00:23:54.799 --> 00:23:58.440
you talked about your your grandfather as well, who again

354
00:23:59.519 --> 00:24:02.480
who live lived in the community in Mexico.

355
00:24:03.039 --> 00:24:05.960
So is that where you grew up? Was or was

356
00:24:05.960 --> 00:24:07.200
it in the states? Here?

357
00:24:07.960 --> 00:24:12.480
No, I consider myself Aho. I consider it is my home.

358
00:24:12.559 --> 00:24:15.000
Okay. Yeah, And what I've.

359
00:24:14.799 --> 00:24:18.000
Been saying lately is you can take the boy out

360
00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:21.200
of Oho, which you can't take Aho out of the boy.

361
00:24:24.880 --> 00:24:27.640
And so uh again, I was born in Santa Vier

362
00:24:28.160 --> 00:24:31.920
early in my life. I don't know when. Okay, we

363
00:24:31.920 --> 00:24:35.000
were living in cells for a while and then and

364
00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:38.359
then we moved to Ajo. So I remember living there

365
00:24:38.960 --> 00:24:41.440
until the end of the fourth grade, and then after

366
00:24:41.480 --> 00:24:45.279
the fourth grade, then we moved to South Tucson. So

367
00:24:45.680 --> 00:24:49.319
uh yeah. But I still consider Aho my my hometown.

368
00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:52.400
And I go back to Aho maybe twice a year.

369
00:24:52.799 --> 00:24:55.519
I go up to the village. Because many people might

370
00:24:55.559 --> 00:24:59.119
not know that a Hoo was a very segregated town

371
00:24:59.519 --> 00:25:03.359
even in the nineteen sixties, and this was by design.

372
00:25:03.839 --> 00:25:09.160
When Ajo was founded circa nineteen sixteen nineteen seventeen, you

373
00:25:09.200 --> 00:25:13.759
can still find the planning maps for the township of Acho.

374
00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:19.279
You could see that Mexican and Mexican Americans were isolated

375
00:25:19.400 --> 00:25:24.200
in the community of Mexican town. All of them were

376
00:25:24.240 --> 00:25:30.880
segregated in the community of Indian Town, which became Indian Village,

377
00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:37.079
and then Anglos were isolated or separated and their community

378
00:25:37.200 --> 00:25:42.880
was called American Town. So by design nineteen seventeen, it

379
00:25:43.039 --> 00:25:48.039
was designed to follow a racist pattern. So I actually

380
00:25:48.119 --> 00:25:50.880
grew up in the village, probably through the first grade.

381
00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:55.839
I was even an altar boy at Saint Catherine's Roman

382
00:25:55.880 --> 00:26:01.359
Catholic Church. Saint Catherine's is now the whole museum, But

383
00:26:01.519 --> 00:26:04.359
when I go back to the village, when I enter

384
00:26:05.160 --> 00:26:09.599
the building, to me, it will always be Saint Catherines.

385
00:26:09.880 --> 00:26:12.839
It's one of my sacred sites. And there's the shrine

386
00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:17.039
up on the hill behind Saint Catharines is another of

387
00:26:17.079 --> 00:26:20.920
my sacred sites. Before my dad passed away, I took

388
00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:23.240
him to Saint Catharines, and I took him to Apfel

389
00:26:23.400 --> 00:26:27.119
because he wanted to visit it. And so I have

390
00:26:27.279 --> 00:26:31.839
fond memories of taking my dad up there and revisiting.

391
00:26:32.720 --> 00:26:36.480
So to this day, Saint Catharines is is one of

392
00:26:36.519 --> 00:26:39.559
my sacred sites. And then we moved to Tucson. It

393
00:26:39.680 --> 00:26:43.240
wasn't until I got to Tucson that I realized how

394
00:26:43.279 --> 00:26:47.079
poor we were. Oh, but before I forget my dad

395
00:26:47.920 --> 00:26:52.160
worked briefly for the Pelops Dodge Mining Corporation, not in

396
00:26:52.240 --> 00:26:55.559
the mine or not in the mills, but he worked

397
00:26:55.599 --> 00:26:59.160
at the public school. Matter of fact, he didn't he

398
00:26:59.160 --> 00:27:02.359
he was one of the maintenance workers. And then he

399
00:27:02.519 --> 00:27:06.039
lost that job. So when he lost that job, he

400
00:27:06.160 --> 00:27:11.200
also lost company housing because all of the village was

401
00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:14.839
company housing. If you worked for Phelps Dodge Mining Company,

402
00:27:15.640 --> 00:27:18.960
you were entitled for housing. So we moved from the

403
00:27:19.079 --> 00:27:23.839
village to Mexican Town. So between those two, those two communities,

404
00:27:24.759 --> 00:27:27.319
that's the Aho that I know. And so that's why

405
00:27:27.359 --> 00:27:30.480
I said that's that's that's where my heart always has

406
00:27:30.519 --> 00:27:34.920
been at Saint Catharine's and that the autom community there.

407
00:27:35.200 --> 00:27:35.599
Wow.

408
00:27:36.319 --> 00:27:39.400
Yeah, that's definitely another thing that I've learned about is

409
00:27:39.559 --> 00:27:42.559
you know, over the years of hearing other Autum telling

410
00:27:42.599 --> 00:27:46.480
their stories of Aho. So learning more about how much

411
00:27:46.640 --> 00:27:51.039
Autumn were involved in the community and how it's just

412
00:27:51.160 --> 00:27:55.759
been a part of Autumn life as well connections that

413
00:27:55.799 --> 00:27:58.599
it has has been really interesting to me too, because

414
00:27:58.920 --> 00:28:01.720
Aho is a really well to me. It's a small

415
00:28:01.960 --> 00:28:07.160
town and you mentioned something earlier this morning about how

416
00:28:07.559 --> 00:28:12.480
it is now like border patrol community type place what.

417
00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:17.039
I call it is that the main employer in Aho

418
00:28:17.960 --> 00:28:21.079
in the United States Border Patrol because they have a

419
00:28:21.200 --> 00:28:26.440
huge detention facility out by the Why but government housing

420
00:28:27.119 --> 00:28:31.599
is in Aho, so now there are so many Border

421
00:28:31.640 --> 00:28:37.079
Patrol agents and their families living in Ajo. Border Patrol

422
00:28:37.200 --> 00:28:41.839
is the biggest economic driver in Aho. And that's a reality.

423
00:28:42.160 --> 00:28:43.200
That's how big it is.

424
00:28:43.559 --> 00:28:46.720
Which again is just it's also just interesting as well,

425
00:28:46.839 --> 00:28:51.559
like the changes and the impact that this international border

426
00:28:51.880 --> 00:28:57.000
has on our lives and the changes that it's you know,

427
00:28:57.119 --> 00:29:00.880
how it's impacted those changes as well. What do you

428
00:29:00.920 --> 00:29:03.920
have any thing you want to add in regards to

429
00:29:04.400 --> 00:29:06.920
your part in co writing this book.

430
00:29:07.359 --> 00:29:09.720
Thank you for allowing us to talk about Aho, because

431
00:29:09.720 --> 00:29:12.480
it's actually one of the parts in our many events

432
00:29:12.640 --> 00:29:15.799
that we don't have time to chat about. We quickly

433
00:29:15.799 --> 00:29:18.720
get to the kind of the two thousands and the

434
00:29:18.759 --> 00:29:22.319
migration tragedies, which of course are important, but this initial

435
00:29:22.359 --> 00:29:24.880
part of the book sort of illustrates what we're trying

436
00:29:24.920 --> 00:29:28.839
to do. So in the book, Mike tells his story

437
00:29:28.880 --> 00:29:32.319
in the first person pros and it's very compelling. And

438
00:29:32.359 --> 00:29:35.839
then in between his chapters, I have these interludes which

439
00:29:35.920 --> 00:29:39.559
zoom out and kind of put Mike's story in conversation

440
00:29:39.759 --> 00:29:43.079
with the history and the politics the culture of the

441
00:29:43.079 --> 00:29:45.759
times that he's talking about. So as Mike talks about

442
00:29:45.799 --> 00:29:49.000
growing up in a Hoo, as Mike said, this really

443
00:29:49.079 --> 00:29:54.640
shows the particular way that modernity comes to the to

444
00:29:54.680 --> 00:30:00.759
Arizona because a Hoo, the Phelps Dodge Company, that is

445
00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:03.240
the site of the first open pit copper mining town

446
00:30:03.319 --> 00:30:06.960
in Arizona, and it is then the city of Ahoa,

447
00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:10.559
as Mike also just said, is intentionally designed as a

448
00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:13.640
progressive space. It's kind of the city's beautiful movement of

449
00:30:13.720 --> 00:30:17.319
the United States at the time, public libraries, swimming pools.

450
00:30:17.359 --> 00:30:20.200
I get seen as a modern but what that means

451
00:30:20.279 --> 00:30:24.680
modern progressive means racial segregation. All that comes together, it

452
00:30:24.720 --> 00:30:28.880
also means environmental devastation. Mike tells the story of his

453
00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:36.079
younger brother who passes. Is it your younger brother, tych Yeah,

454
00:30:36.240 --> 00:30:39.160
So there's a tragedy in the family that's related to

455
00:30:39.160 --> 00:30:42.759
the environmental damage. And so just very briefly, what we

456
00:30:42.839 --> 00:30:46.279
want to talk about is what we call the Boomtown lessons.

457
00:30:46.319 --> 00:30:49.400
The first boomtown was this idea of copper and prosperity,

458
00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:52.519
and how that form of racial capitalism has a high cost.

459
00:30:53.039 --> 00:30:55.680
But the new Boomtown, as you all were just mentioning,

460
00:30:55.799 --> 00:30:58.400
is the border patrol boomtown and what that looks like,

461
00:30:58.440 --> 00:31:04.079
which is also racialized. Also government and contractors making money

462
00:31:04.440 --> 00:31:07.160
at the expense of a lot of poor, racialized communities.

463
00:31:07.599 --> 00:31:10.839
So those those Boomtown lessons really kind of show the

464
00:31:10.920 --> 00:31:16.039
old but many of the dynamics remain really toxic in

465
00:31:16.599 --> 00:31:19.039
ways that are historically different. But there's a there's a

466
00:31:19.119 --> 00:31:20.960
kind of a through line that we can trace there.

467
00:31:28.359 --> 00:31:29.119
Quick break.

468
00:31:29.559 --> 00:31:33.240
If you're enjoying the episode and want to dive deeper,

469
00:31:33.799 --> 00:31:37.559
check out the episode description. I've dropped some helpful links

470
00:31:37.599 --> 00:31:42.720
and extra info, whether it's resources we've mentioned or ways

471
00:31:42.759 --> 00:31:43.279
to connect.

472
00:31:43.839 --> 00:31:47.160
It's just a tap away. Now back to the show.

473
00:31:58.839 --> 00:32:02.480
Yeah, you know, without giving away too much of the book,

474
00:32:02.559 --> 00:32:05.160
you can read all of what we're talking about, and

475
00:32:05.160 --> 00:32:08.440
what Tony just mentioned, and the tragedy that did happen

476
00:32:08.519 --> 00:32:13.799
with Mike's older brother, with the environmental impacts of you know,

477
00:32:13.880 --> 00:32:16.359
these types of things. You can read that in the book.

478
00:32:16.519 --> 00:32:19.759
And yeah, so it's just a really interesting and intricate

479
00:32:19.839 --> 00:32:25.640
way you both have managed to kind of guide your

480
00:32:25.680 --> 00:32:30.400
way through these different stories in different timelines and different periods.

481
00:32:30.480 --> 00:32:34.359
And the book also includes pictures, which this one, by

482
00:32:34.400 --> 00:32:37.680
the way, I'm looking at it right now, just because

483
00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:40.359
I recognize you. You mentioned in the book that you

484
00:32:40.440 --> 00:32:44.160
were friends with Danny Lopez. That's what I was going

485
00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:49.240
to ask, which, no, not that Dan lo okay, Okay,

486
00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:53.680
not the elder okay. But going back to when I

487
00:32:53.759 --> 00:32:57.960
was talking about how them we've always evolved with the times.

488
00:32:58.400 --> 00:33:00.039
And you talked about.

489
00:33:00.759 --> 00:33:03.119
When you were younger, when you were a teenager, you

490
00:33:03.359 --> 00:33:05.880
and your friends, you guys love to play records, You

491
00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:09.079
love to dance, you love to go to dances. You

492
00:33:09.160 --> 00:33:13.559
talked about the Indian Center here in Tucson, and this

493
00:33:13.799 --> 00:33:18.599
black and white paper clipping of the story which talks

494
00:33:18.640 --> 00:33:21.960
about this band, the Fagans. Can you talk a little

495
00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:24.839
bit of just about that little piece there and why

496
00:33:24.920 --> 00:33:26.119
was that important to add?

497
00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:31.200
We wanted to add there because again, there was an

498
00:33:31.279 --> 00:33:34.440
all them a Yaki community in South Tucson, and there

499
00:33:34.599 --> 00:33:39.799
was I saw adult community leadership come together and they

500
00:33:39.920 --> 00:33:43.920
formed an association. It was called the American Indian Association,

501
00:33:45.079 --> 00:33:48.519
and then they founded their own Indian Center in South

502
00:33:48.559 --> 00:33:54.000
Tucson on West twenty ninth Street. So now we had

503
00:33:54.079 --> 00:33:58.519
our own community center with our own adult all them

504
00:33:58.680 --> 00:34:02.839
Yaki leader. So for me, it was a sort of

505
00:34:03.200 --> 00:34:08.360
tremendous pride. And then now we have all these Autumn

506
00:34:08.400 --> 00:34:14.960
youngsters that came together as you know this first iteration,

507
00:34:15.280 --> 00:34:20.000
the Fagans, and I'm looking at the late Ralph Quisto,

508
00:34:21.559 --> 00:34:26.559
the number two, Henry Enos, a guitar player, a legend

509
00:34:26.760 --> 00:34:33.559
before his time, Joel Romilly, Johnny Mulietta, Richard Murieta. Their

510
00:34:33.599 --> 00:34:38.760
mom was Autumn and their dad was Yoeme Yaqui from Sonora,

511
00:34:39.239 --> 00:34:43.119
my cousin, the late Tony Pavello. And there's my brother

512
00:34:44.119 --> 00:34:50.599
Joe Wilson Junior, and then Daniel Herbert Lopez, Danny Lopez.

513
00:34:51.199 --> 00:34:54.679
So these were all my friends, and so this picture

514
00:34:54.760 --> 00:34:58.119
is significant. As you mentioned, we were a product of

515
00:34:58.199 --> 00:35:03.119
our time, and this this rock and roll band. They

516
00:35:03.159 --> 00:35:06.719
were so good that in nineteen sixty six or nineteen

517
00:35:06.760 --> 00:35:11.960
sixty seven they won the city wide Bottle of the Bands,

518
00:35:12.199 --> 00:35:16.000
and that was a small band from South Tucson not

519
00:35:16.119 --> 00:35:20.519
only played rock and roll, but why the music? Oh wow,

520
00:35:20.880 --> 00:35:25.119
you know, they're the Indian Center and they'd alternate and

521
00:35:25.760 --> 00:35:29.239
as I say, you know, I say it straight up

522
00:35:29.280 --> 00:35:32.800
in the book, I'm an urban Indian that I, if

523
00:35:32.840 --> 00:35:36.360
I may use this analogy, I didn't grow up on Powell.

524
00:35:36.800 --> 00:35:41.280
I grew up on Motown. And if you don't believe me,

525
00:35:42.159 --> 00:35:42.920
I haven't seen my.

526
00:35:42.920 --> 00:35:48.079
Moves, It's true. I've seen his moves.

527
00:35:48.519 --> 00:35:51.920
So and so when I look back at this picture,

528
00:35:51.960 --> 00:35:55.400
I say, oh, my God. And all of us, all

529
00:35:55.519 --> 00:35:59.519
some teenagers and some of the pre teenagers. We would

530
00:35:59.559 --> 00:36:02.360
live for the dance as Saturday night. It was sort

531
00:36:02.679 --> 00:36:06.400
Not only was it fun, but it was cultural pride

532
00:36:07.119 --> 00:36:11.559
that we had our own Indian center and everybody could

533
00:36:11.639 --> 00:36:16.199
come in blocks, Chicanos, anybody could come to the door,

534
00:36:16.280 --> 00:36:19.239
and we were very proud of that. And then afterwards,

535
00:36:19.320 --> 00:36:23.440
in a midnight, when you know, they closed, we'd go

536
00:36:23.519 --> 00:36:28.119
to relatives each other's houses to play records. And it

537
00:36:28.280 --> 00:36:32.119
was safe because all of our parents, maybe not all

538
00:36:32.119 --> 00:36:35.960
of many of our parents from saut Tucson knew each

539
00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:40.079
other from the reservation. And after World War Two, when

540
00:36:40.119 --> 00:36:43.280
many left the reservation, it came to Tucson or Cels

541
00:36:43.440 --> 00:36:47.199
or Phoenix or Casti grand many of the elders knew

542
00:36:47.239 --> 00:36:52.159
each other or knew the families or my case, related

543
00:36:52.480 --> 00:36:56.000
to half of South Tucson. So it was all with safe.

544
00:36:56.320 --> 00:36:58.719
After we left the Indian Center, it was all with

545
00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:02.039
safe to go to somebody's house and my mom said,

546
00:37:02.079 --> 00:37:05.599
you can go, but I always stay together as long

547
00:37:05.639 --> 00:37:07.920
as I know where you're going. And so there was

548
00:37:07.960 --> 00:37:08.920
a sense of trust.

549
00:37:09.519 --> 00:37:12.840
Yeah, And what kind of music or records would you

550
00:37:12.880 --> 00:37:13.440
guys play?

551
00:37:14.079 --> 00:37:21.880
Motown slow dance songs? Girl, kids these days don't slow dance.

552
00:37:21.880 --> 00:37:27.840
I don't think. They jump around and at a great

553
00:37:28.199 --> 00:37:32.360
distance from each other and they call that dancing. I don't.

554
00:37:32.400 --> 00:37:41.039
I don't care, or maybe it's a big generation.

555
00:37:42.599 --> 00:37:44.239
Bring slow dance back.

556
00:37:48.440 --> 00:37:50.719
Well, Yeah, so I just wanted That's definitely one thing

557
00:37:50.760 --> 00:37:54.679
that was interesting. And I'm really glad that you included

558
00:37:54.719 --> 00:37:58.719
these photos. Very important, especially as far as like having

559
00:37:58.800 --> 00:38:04.719
visuals as part of this very wide range of storytelling.

560
00:38:04.760 --> 00:38:08.719
But that all have connections and all makes sense when

561
00:38:08.760 --> 00:38:10.960
you start to realize what those connections are.

562
00:38:11.440 --> 00:38:13.039
Can I jump inver to Yeah? Yeah, sure.

563
00:38:13.079 --> 00:38:14.960
And I'm so glad that you brought this up, Tina,

564
00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:17.320
because I think we you know, we kind of started

565
00:38:17.400 --> 00:38:19.840
with some of the heavy topics already and we'll probably

566
00:38:19.840 --> 00:38:22.000
come back to it. But what you and Mike just

567
00:38:22.119 --> 00:38:24.519
illustrated so wonderfully is the importance of joy.

568
00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:27.599
You know, that Indigenous.

569
00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:30.719
Joy is alive at present, was then, is now, and

570
00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:33.480
that that is another way that you can think about

571
00:38:33.480 --> 00:38:36.320
self determination. It's another way you can think about a

572
00:38:36.320 --> 00:38:39.760
form of sovereignty. And the fact that I was very

573
00:38:39.800 --> 00:38:43.360
moved when Mike described just how elders like Ella Rumley,

574
00:38:43.480 --> 00:38:46.159
you know, saw that the kids needed a space and

575
00:38:46.760 --> 00:38:49.480
really found a way to create that space. And then

576
00:38:49.559 --> 00:38:52.039
as Mike just said, that space was open to everybody,

577
00:38:52.679 --> 00:38:55.159
and that's just I mean, that's a beautiful thing and

578
00:38:55.199 --> 00:38:58.880
it's important. But I think it's also something that academics

579
00:38:58.880 --> 00:39:01.519
are suddenly starting to read that we have to kind

580
00:39:01.519 --> 00:39:03.280
of slow down a little bit when we just think

581
00:39:03.440 --> 00:39:06.079
all about damage all the time and really think about

582
00:39:06.159 --> 00:39:09.840
joy and think about what that opens up. One of

583
00:39:09.840 --> 00:39:12.840
my colleagues in American Indian studies said to me something

584
00:39:12.840 --> 00:39:15.960
that I really still appreciate. He said, one of the

585
00:39:15.960 --> 00:39:20.559
things that colonialism does is it takes Native people's ability

586
00:39:20.719 --> 00:39:24.199
to host and to have extend hospitality, takes that away

587
00:39:24.239 --> 00:39:28.280
from them. And what Mike's describing is how Native people

588
00:39:28.320 --> 00:39:30.440
are able to build that again and be able to

589
00:39:30.480 --> 00:39:34.320
host and extent hospitality and generosity and show abundance and

590
00:39:34.360 --> 00:39:38.039
these in ways that are remarkable and impressive, and often

591
00:39:38.119 --> 00:39:41.159
you know, live that reality lives alongside all the heavy

592
00:39:41.159 --> 00:39:43.440
stuff that we're talking about too, So seeing both the

593
00:39:43.519 --> 00:39:45.639
light and the dark kind of you know, in every

594
00:39:45.719 --> 00:39:47.119
chapter of Mike's life, I think is one of the

595
00:39:47.199 --> 00:39:48.239
nice things about the book.

596
00:39:48.599 --> 00:39:50.760
And that's definitely one thing I do appreciate about the

597
00:39:50.800 --> 00:39:54.119
book too, is like, yeah, it really is true storytelling,

598
00:39:54.719 --> 00:40:00.000
and it's storytelling from a perspective of like the difference

599
00:40:00.960 --> 00:40:05.239
the different times, time periods in life that aught them.

600
00:40:05.280 --> 00:40:07.360
We're doing and it's not just you, Yeah, this is

601
00:40:07.400 --> 00:40:10.840
your story, but you're including like what other autumn are

602
00:40:10.920 --> 00:40:15.760
doing and acknowledging the changes that we adapted to as

603
00:40:15.800 --> 00:40:20.000
the autumn, whether it's good or bad. And you did

604
00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:23.119
a really good job, both of you in telling the

605
00:40:23.159 --> 00:40:27.159
good and the bad, overcoming the challenges and the challenges

606
00:40:27.199 --> 00:40:31.159
that were faced, whether it's dealing with at home things.

607
00:40:31.679 --> 00:40:33.960
I know you talked about some of the things with

608
00:40:34.039 --> 00:40:37.000
your father, but then even with your mom, your mom

609
00:40:37.039 --> 00:40:40.639
being such a hard work you're raising six kids, and

610
00:40:41.000 --> 00:40:42.960
I'm sure there were a lot of other lot of

611
00:40:43.039 --> 00:40:48.519
parents that went through that. It's just really interesting this

612
00:40:48.639 --> 00:40:52.039
book overall. So if you haven't gotten yourself a copy,

613
00:40:52.159 --> 00:40:55.880
you the listener. It's titled What Side Are You On?

614
00:40:56.079 --> 00:41:00.800
A thawn Autumn Life Across Borders at? Where can people

615
00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:01.800
pick the book up?

616
00:41:02.800 --> 00:41:04.239
A booksellers?

617
00:41:04.280 --> 00:41:06.639
You can get it directly from our publisher, University of

618
00:41:06.679 --> 00:41:08.920
North Carolina Press. You can go on their website and

619
00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:13.480
order it straight from them. Other online sellers Mission Garden.

620
00:41:13.519 --> 00:41:15.559
I think there are a few copies after their their

621
00:41:15.599 --> 00:41:18.840
gift shop. Yeah, you can. You can find it pretty easily.

622
00:41:18.960 --> 00:41:21.880
Just google it What Side Are You On? Mike Wilson

623
00:41:21.880 --> 00:41:22.639
and you'll find it.

624
00:41:23.440 --> 00:41:26.880
Another thing we discovered is that me and Mike could

625
00:41:26.920 --> 00:41:36.079
possibly be related because of the last name Babbages. I

626
00:41:36.119 --> 00:41:38.719
say Bavages, you Sayaba Giz.

627
00:41:41.119 --> 00:41:41.840
And you know.

628
00:41:41.920 --> 00:41:45.760
So, I'm not completely done reading the book, but I've

629
00:41:45.800 --> 00:41:49.079
gotten to where you talk about that, so I'm interested

630
00:41:49.079 --> 00:41:53.000
to get more into that. Is there anything that you

631
00:41:53.119 --> 00:41:54.320
want to add right now?

632
00:41:54.440 --> 00:41:55.920
Or are yes?

633
00:41:55.920 --> 00:41:58.719
Since you mentioned it, since I first mentioned since we

634
00:41:58.840 --> 00:42:01.639
first met and we were talking in the parking lot

635
00:42:02.880 --> 00:42:08.280
and I mentioned there's a photo. Page forty eight of

636
00:42:08.440 --> 00:42:15.079
two Native young men who were students at the carl

637
00:42:15.239 --> 00:42:20.400
Indian School, the notorious carl Indian School in Carlile, Pennsylvania.

638
00:42:21.440 --> 00:42:27.920
And there's two young men, one B. Babagas and Thomas Kinney.

639
00:42:28.360 --> 00:42:33.679
One B. Vombages was probably my grandfather because when I

640
00:42:33.760 --> 00:42:39.840
was a young man, one time I asked my dad Wilson. Really,

641
00:42:42.480 --> 00:42:45.840
I said, Dad, why do we have this white last

642
00:42:45.920 --> 00:42:51.400
name Wilson And he said, well, when my dad, or

643
00:42:51.440 --> 00:42:54.480
the young man, he went to school back east, that's

644
00:42:54.519 --> 00:42:57.840
all he knew. So when Tony and I started this

645
00:42:58.039 --> 00:43:02.159
project and he was doing the recent one time we

646
00:43:02.159 --> 00:43:07.679
were talking about the missing children from the Canadian residential

647
00:43:07.719 --> 00:43:11.239
boarding schools who had died and whose remains were never

648
00:43:11.320 --> 00:43:14.400
sent back home to their nations or to their communities.

649
00:43:14.760 --> 00:43:17.440
So I said, oh, the United States, we had our

650
00:43:17.519 --> 00:43:23.199
own boarding school system, just like in Canada. And as

651
00:43:23.239 --> 00:43:26.840
a matter of fact, I think my grandfather went to

652
00:43:26.920 --> 00:43:31.199
one of those schools. Wilson was named Harry Wilson. So

653
00:43:31.639 --> 00:43:35.360
when I asked my father, he said, well, my father

654
00:43:36.559 --> 00:43:39.599
went to school back east and they changed his name.

655
00:43:40.079 --> 00:43:44.679
And so in our research we found it was federal

656
00:43:44.719 --> 00:43:50.159
policy in collaboration with churches who were running the schools.

657
00:43:50.719 --> 00:43:54.960
There was an unwritten federal policy that said something like

658
00:43:55.400 --> 00:43:59.960
kill the Indian, save the man, which in other words,

659
00:44:00.480 --> 00:44:06.719
erase the Native American identity, erase the name, get rid

660
00:44:06.760 --> 00:44:10.760
of the language, and make them whint. So my grandfather

661
00:44:11.280 --> 00:44:20.920
wan be Vabages or our grandfather went into Carlisle Indo

662
00:44:21.079 --> 00:44:26.320
School circa nineteen hundred, went in as Juan Baba does

663
00:44:26.519 --> 00:44:30.480
and came out Harry Wilson. And before my late cousin

664
00:44:31.039 --> 00:44:34.039
Art Wilson passed away, one time I asked him, I

665
00:44:34.039 --> 00:44:36.760
think we were in cells, I said, Art, I said,

666
00:44:37.480 --> 00:44:41.599
what do you know about Vabajes? He said, Mike. Before

667
00:44:41.639 --> 00:44:45.320
she died, Because Art Wilson was one of the Cultural

668
00:44:45.559 --> 00:44:49.920
Leader's cultural advisers on the nation, he said, I spoke

669
00:44:49.960 --> 00:44:52.199
to one of the elders before she died, and she

670
00:44:52.320 --> 00:44:55.119
said there was a plant that her and auth them

671
00:44:55.199 --> 00:44:58.360
women would use for medicine and the name of the

672
00:44:58.400 --> 00:45:02.760
plant was baba. He says, So I think that name

673
00:45:03.119 --> 00:45:06.440
came from the medisinal plant babaci. And so for me

674
00:45:06.519 --> 00:45:11.360
it's very significant that name because that means mine, our

675
00:45:11.480 --> 00:45:14.920
last our bab just last name means we're attached to

676
00:45:14.960 --> 00:45:18.239
the Earth. We are attached to the mother Earth. Not

677
00:45:18.320 --> 00:45:21.719
only that, but we are healers, and so I find

678
00:45:21.760 --> 00:45:23.519
that very very profound.

679
00:45:24.599 --> 00:45:26.639
Yeah, I think that, you know, growing up with that

680
00:45:26.719 --> 00:45:30.519
last name, we a lot of people are always interested.

681
00:45:31.239 --> 00:45:33.920
It's just one of those names that I guess people don't.

682
00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:37.679
It's rare, I guess, and so people are like, wow,

683
00:45:37.880 --> 00:45:40.480
vav And I remember when I went to school out

684
00:45:40.480 --> 00:45:43.199
here in Tucson. If they were it was an older person,

685
00:45:43.239 --> 00:45:45.239
they were like, where does the name come from? Is

686
00:45:45.280 --> 00:45:46.079
it Italian?

687
00:45:46.239 --> 00:45:49.239
And stuff like that, and you know, we just we

688
00:45:49.320 --> 00:45:49.840
don't know.

689
00:45:49.960 --> 00:45:52.239
But a lot of people to this day asked that

690
00:45:52.320 --> 00:45:56.760
question a lot. So it was interesting to hear your

691
00:45:56.800 --> 00:45:59.840
perspective about where the last name came from.

692
00:46:00.639 --> 00:46:01.199
As a matter of.

693
00:46:01.199 --> 00:46:04.000
Fact, as I was telling you about ten years ago,

694
00:46:04.119 --> 00:46:08.440
I met some awthem from Sonora, from Logana, Sonora, and

695
00:46:08.519 --> 00:46:12.239
this guy introduced himself to me and his last name

696
00:46:12.320 --> 00:46:17.039
was Baba jee b a b A g I And

697
00:46:17.119 --> 00:46:20.840
I thought, I wonder if that's the original spelling of

698
00:46:20.920 --> 00:46:26.000
Babaja's Babaji, because that was that was how Art Wilson

699
00:46:26.360 --> 00:46:28.440
said the word Babaji.

700
00:46:29.159 --> 00:46:29.719
Interesting.

701
00:46:30.320 --> 00:46:33.840
Yeah, so we are of the earth you and are healers.

702
00:46:34.840 --> 00:46:38.840
Well, I mean, it's just been really really interesting to

703
00:46:38.880 --> 00:46:43.639
see what you're both of your perspective on just the

704
00:46:43.719 --> 00:46:46.320
overall topics that are covered, and there's so many different

705
00:46:46.320 --> 00:46:52.360
ones or different topics that tie into the next chapter,

706
00:46:52.719 --> 00:46:56.800
the next interlude. And I'm really glad that you You

707
00:46:56.960 --> 00:47:01.599
also mentioned the death of Raymond Mattias say his name,

708
00:47:02.239 --> 00:47:06.039
And I'm reading this little excerpt from the book itself.

709
00:47:06.760 --> 00:47:10.960
Who killed Raymond Matia? It was fear who brought the bullets,

710
00:47:11.280 --> 00:47:14.760
it was racism who loaded the gun. It was hatred

711
00:47:14.800 --> 00:47:18.320
who pulled the trigger. Tell us about the importance of that,

712
00:47:18.360 --> 00:47:21.239
because I know I didn't interview with.

713
00:47:21.199 --> 00:47:23.920
Two of his nieces, but conversation.

714
00:47:24.199 --> 00:47:25.679
Yeah. Absolutely.

715
00:47:27.280 --> 00:47:31.159
Would you like to talk a little bit more about

716
00:47:31.440 --> 00:47:33.960
why you felt it was important to also include that

717
00:47:34.079 --> 00:47:34.599
in your book.

718
00:47:35.599 --> 00:47:39.000
Yeah, As a matter of fact, I actually wrote that

719
00:47:39.119 --> 00:47:44.039
poem originally a couple of years ago. I was in Brussels, Belgium.

720
00:47:44.199 --> 00:47:49.159
I was invited to participate because of another film that

721
00:47:49.239 --> 00:47:53.239
I was in called The Wall, where I played myself,

722
00:47:53.679 --> 00:47:57.719
and I was invited to the Brussels International Film Festival,

723
00:47:58.559 --> 00:48:00.920
and at the time I was there where there was

724
00:48:01.000 --> 00:48:06.480
a Arab French citizen, young man who was killed by

725
00:48:06.480 --> 00:48:10.519
the French police. And it was another I thought, it's

726
00:48:10.559 --> 00:48:13.119
not just in the United States, it's people of color

727
00:48:13.599 --> 00:48:21.519
being killed with impunity, with immunity by law enforcement. And

728
00:48:21.639 --> 00:48:25.440
so I was sitting down, I was having coffee with

729
00:48:25.639 --> 00:48:28.800
one of my former co directors of another documentary film.

730
00:48:29.519 --> 00:48:31.599
We were sitting having coffee, and I was just so

731
00:48:31.800 --> 00:48:36.760
frustrated this time a personal color in Paris was murdered.

732
00:48:37.199 --> 00:48:41.079
So I wrote that Originally I forgot the young man's name,

733
00:48:41.239 --> 00:48:44.760
the Muslim French kid. And then when I got back home,

734
00:48:44.960 --> 00:48:48.760
George Floyd was killed, and then Raymond Mattias was killed.

735
00:48:49.000 --> 00:48:53.000
So I took up this poem and I dedicated to

736
00:48:53.159 --> 00:48:57.559
Raymond Matthias and all people of color who are on

737
00:48:57.840 --> 00:49:02.760
who are killed by law enforcement. Hey, Raymond was killed

738
00:49:02.800 --> 00:49:05.880
in front of his house, in front of his family,

739
00:49:06.199 --> 00:49:09.480
not by a tribal police officer who killed him United

740
00:49:09.480 --> 00:49:15.480
States Border Patrol agent, which speaks angrily of the militarization

741
00:49:16.320 --> 00:49:20.920
of the border and on autumn country, where's our sovereignty?

742
00:49:21.519 --> 00:49:24.920
If the border patrol can kill then authorm citizen and

743
00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:28.960
the family has no recourse. They are Scott free and

744
00:49:29.119 --> 00:49:33.519
probably still on the federal payroll. So that was the

745
00:49:33.559 --> 00:49:38.599
beginning of that poem. But I thought it pertained the

746
00:49:38.840 --> 00:49:44.280
tribal member, our relative, Raymond Matthias, so I wanted it included.

747
00:49:44.400 --> 00:49:46.119
I wanted his name included.

748
00:49:47.199 --> 00:49:50.400
Yeah, thank you so much again for just everything that

749
00:49:50.440 --> 00:49:54.320
you've been able to include in your book. And you know,

750
00:49:54.360 --> 00:49:56.559
I don't want to give too much away. You know,

751
00:49:56.599 --> 00:50:00.800
we'll let the listeners if they wanted to, to get

752
00:50:00.800 --> 00:50:04.400
the book and read through the different topics that we've

753
00:50:04.440 --> 00:50:07.679
talked about today. But you know, what are what are

754
00:50:07.679 --> 00:50:10.599
your thoughts after writing this book? You know, first you

755
00:50:10.679 --> 00:50:13.159
never thought of writing a book before. Then you got

756
00:50:13.199 --> 00:50:17.480
asked about writing a book and you had some assistance

757
00:50:17.679 --> 00:50:20.800
with doing that and now here it is. How are

758
00:50:20.840 --> 00:50:22.039
you feeling about it now?

759
00:50:23.199 --> 00:50:25.920
I'm very proud of it. You know, Tony and I

760
00:50:26.119 --> 00:50:33.000
have been. We weren't satisfied with the national tour. We

761
00:50:33.079 --> 00:50:36.320
are not calling it the Mike and Tony World Tour.

762
00:50:39.760 --> 00:50:41.400
We need merch though we don't have merch.

763
00:50:41.800 --> 00:50:49.280
H Yeah, and so yeah, we've been on book tours.

764
00:50:49.440 --> 00:50:56.239
We were in University California, Berkeley, Stanford, University of Santa Clara.

765
00:50:57.320 --> 00:51:02.239
You see the two Stun Festival books to Nau Prince Denston,

766
00:51:03.719 --> 00:51:08.840
Yu Stony Brook, Stonybrook, Colombia and Colombia and Syracuse and

767
00:51:08.880 --> 00:51:09.639
then Syracuse.

768
00:51:10.079 --> 00:51:11.760
The book has been I mean it is.

769
00:51:12.639 --> 00:51:14.239
When we got it and we actually held in our hands,

770
00:51:14.280 --> 00:51:16.159
it's it's it was an amazing feeling because it was

771
00:51:16.159 --> 00:51:18.440
a long journey. It took us twelve years to from

772
00:51:18.559 --> 00:51:21.559
kind of beginning to finally having that out in the world,

773
00:51:21.639 --> 00:51:24.599
and it's been a lot, but being able to share

774
00:51:24.639 --> 00:51:27.239
it in conversation with folks like we are doing today

775
00:51:27.280 --> 00:51:31.239
has been really special. Every conversation has been different, and

776
00:51:31.360 --> 00:51:35.400
you know, we started the tour before the US presidential election,

777
00:51:36.199 --> 00:51:39.280
and the tone of course changed after the result of

778
00:51:39.320 --> 00:51:41.800
that election came and was not the one that many

779
00:51:41.800 --> 00:51:47.000
of us wanted. That being said, the book continues to be,

780
00:51:47.199 --> 00:51:50.199
I think a source of hope for me because in

781
00:51:50.280 --> 00:51:55.960
Mike's life you see lots of really dramatic transformations and

782
00:51:56.320 --> 00:51:58.679
the way that people can change their mind about some

783
00:51:58.679 --> 00:52:02.480
fundamental issues. And as Mike says, you know, life is

784
00:52:02.480 --> 00:52:05.360
a journey, and so it really is kind of a

785
00:52:05.400 --> 00:52:11.159
hopeful story about how life experiences and bearing witness to

786
00:52:11.280 --> 00:52:14.639
injustice can really change the direction of not just an

787
00:52:14.679 --> 00:52:18.400
individual life, but entire societies. So I think that's really

788
00:52:18.440 --> 00:52:22.519
the hope. And there's also something in the intergenerational conversation.

789
00:52:22.599 --> 00:52:24.119
You know, Mike's kind of is a product of the

790
00:52:24.199 --> 00:52:27.639
nineteen fifties. I'm a child of the nineteen eighties. But

791
00:52:27.880 --> 00:52:30.480
we often talk about how the hope for this book is,

792
00:52:30.559 --> 00:52:33.800
you know, with people like you, Tina and also other

793
00:52:33.880 --> 00:52:37.719
young voices, that there's an intergenerational theory of change here

794
00:52:37.760 --> 00:52:40.239
that if we can convince people who are Mike's age

795
00:52:40.320 --> 00:52:43.360
or my age, then maybe their kids or their grandkids.

796
00:52:43.519 --> 00:52:46.239
That's taking a long view on how we can change

797
00:52:46.280 --> 00:52:48.360
some of these stories that are told about Native people,

798
00:52:48.559 --> 00:52:51.199
about immigrants. So that's really the thing that kind of

799
00:52:51.360 --> 00:52:54.440
has animated the writing, but also the many conversations we've.

800
00:52:54.320 --> 00:52:55.559
Had about awesome.

801
00:52:55.639 --> 00:52:58.519
Well, thank you both so much for taking the time

802
00:52:58.599 --> 00:53:01.639
to sit down with me. Yeah, I really enjoyed the

803
00:53:01.639 --> 00:53:06.079
book presentation in Mission Garden, and thanks for lunch that

804
00:53:06.320 --> 00:53:12.599
was in a delicious Jody so an eggs burrito. And

805
00:53:13.159 --> 00:53:15.599
right now we're probably gonna I'm gonna put on some

806
00:53:15.760 --> 00:53:17.880
Moton music because she Mike.

807
00:53:17.760 --> 00:53:20.639
Smooves if you're gonna have to clear the room. Someone's

808
00:53:20.679 --> 00:53:21.079
gonna start.

809
00:53:21.639 --> 00:53:25.840
I'm gonna get on the table. But is there any

810
00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:28.519
last words that you want to share with the listening

811
00:53:28.599 --> 00:53:31.000
audience before we end this interview.

812
00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:36.000
Jess, Thank you very much, Tina. This is a great opportunity. Again,

813
00:53:36.599 --> 00:53:40.239
It's what I like so much about this book. It's

814
00:53:40.280 --> 00:53:45.239
an equal partnership between the professor and the storyteller. Not

815
00:53:45.440 --> 00:53:48.199
that Tony. It's not us also in his own right

816
00:53:48.280 --> 00:53:52.360
as storyteller, but rather, I should say the academic. And

817
00:53:52.840 --> 00:53:57.159
I hope I'm being following the aunt and tradition of storytelling.

818
00:53:57.639 --> 00:54:00.119
That's what I wanted to hold on to in the book,

819
00:54:01.079 --> 00:54:05.199
and I hope it comes across to the reader. Oh,

820
00:54:05.239 --> 00:54:09.400
I get it. That sounds like my grandfather talking. That's

821
00:54:09.440 --> 00:54:10.679
what I'm hoping to.

822
00:54:11.159 --> 00:54:13.320
Thank you too. It's been a great pleasure and honor to.

823
00:54:13.320 --> 00:54:13.679
Be with you.

824
00:54:14.159 --> 00:54:17.199
Thank you so much, and best of luck to you

825
00:54:17.360 --> 00:54:20.440
all on your journey on the road. Thank you to

826
00:54:20.519 --> 00:54:25.800
the listener. If you want to learn more about Mike's work,

827
00:54:25.920 --> 00:54:28.119
I'm going to share some links in the description.

828
00:54:28.360 --> 00:54:30.840
You can easily go there click on the link.

829
00:54:30.880 --> 00:54:35.159
I'll share videos as well, and thank you so much

830
00:54:35.360 --> 00:54:37.800
for taking the time to sit in with me and

831
00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:38.840
share your story.

832
00:54:39.320 --> 00:54:40.119
Thank you Ta

833
00:55:00.400 --> 00:55:00.920
Somet