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Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: For almost my entire life, I did not know the

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Speaker 2: story of my father's birth. I did not know that

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Speaker 2: those whispers I heard about the incinerator at the mission

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Speaker 2: weren't just res legends. I did not know that for Dad, me,

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Speaker 2: my sister, and all the Noisecats who will come after us,

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Speaker 2: this is our origin story. In fact, I didn't even

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Speaker 2: know there was much to know about my father's birth

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Speaker 2: until I was well into my twenties. All I knew

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Speaker 2: was that attended Saint Joseph's, that she finished high school

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Speaker 2: and studied nursing at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, one

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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty miles south of Williams Lake, and that

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Speaker 2: she rarely said a word about any of it.

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Speaker 3: That's Julian Brave, Noisecat writer, oscar nominated filmmaker, champion pow

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Speaker 3: Wow dancer, and student of Salish art and history. His

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Speaker 3: first book, We Survived the Night, has just been published.

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Speaker 3: Julian's is a story of legacy, the power of the unspoken,

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Speaker 3: the complexity of identity, the weight of history, and the

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Speaker 3: myths that are passed down from generation to generation that

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Speaker 3: can help us if we let them make sense of

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Speaker 3: our lives and the people we love. I'm Danny Shapiro,

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Speaker 3: and this is family secrets, the secrets that are kept

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Speaker 3: from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the

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Speaker 3: secrets we keep from ourselves.

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Speaker 2: My parents came from two completely different worlds. My dad

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Speaker 2: was born at Saint Joseph's Mission, which is an Indian

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Speaker 2: residential school in the interior of British Columbia, Canada, and

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Speaker 2: he was actually found just minutes after his birth in

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Speaker 2: the trash incinerator by the night watchman at the school.

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Speaker 2: From there, he was raised by first his grandparents on

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Speaker 2: the Cannon Lake Indian Reserve.

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Speaker 4: Alice Nuiskit, whose last.

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Speaker 2: Name I actually carry bastardized and became noise Cat over time,

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Speaker 2: and then he bounced around.

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Speaker 4: From house to house.

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Speaker 2: You know, this was a period of time when Native

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Speaker 2: people had been denied the right to raise our own children,

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Speaker 2: and so there was a lot of dysfunction in Cannon

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Speaker 2: Lake and on many other Indian reserves at the time.

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Speaker 2: So he moved from his his grandmother and grandfather's place

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Speaker 2: to aunties and uncles, to white families in the neighboring

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Speaker 2: town of Forest Grove and on and on, sometimes with

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Speaker 2: his mom and dad too, and eventually, you know, when

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Speaker 2: it was time for him to grow up, he got out.

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Speaker 2: You know, Candon Lake didn't feel like a safe place

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Speaker 2: for him. He was teased the time that he was

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Speaker 2: a small child and called the garbage can kid, and

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Speaker 2: so he essentially tried to get as far away from

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Speaker 2: Cannon Lake as he possibly could, which eventually led him

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Speaker 2: to New York, which is where my mom is from.

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Speaker 2: My mom is a is an Irish Jewish New Yorker,

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Speaker 2: so's I would say, she's very New York.

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Speaker 4: Her father was a writer. Actually, my mom was a

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Speaker 4: really spunky kid. She was whip smart, but she.

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Speaker 2: Was also a little bit of a little bit of

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Speaker 2: a rebel. From the age of about eleven, she started

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Speaker 2: smoking pot. She would hitchhike here, there and everywhere back

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Speaker 2: when I guess that was something that people let girls do.

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Speaker 2: And she, you know, always felt a little bit like

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Speaker 2: an outcast.

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Speaker 4: In her own family.

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Speaker 2: You know, they were because of my grandfather and his

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Speaker 2: writing career. They were kind of in the New York

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Speaker 2: intellectual scene. You know. My grandfather, for example, once wrote

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Speaker 2: a profile of his friend Glenn for the New Yorker,

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Speaker 2: like you know, this was a heady kind of crowd,

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Speaker 2: and my mom always, you know, despite being a smart woman,

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Speaker 2: didn't really feel like that was who she wanted to

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Speaker 2: be around. So she never dated a white guy, despite

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Speaker 2: being white. And when my dad, this this native guy

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Speaker 2: with long head of hair, you know, walked into the

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Speaker 2: Shadow Brook where she was working as a as a

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Speaker 2: bartender while also having a job, and I believe CBS

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Speaker 2: in the city, you know, he immediately caught her eye

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Speaker 2: and she poured him drinks all night, and at the

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Speaker 2: end of the night, he thought she was I believe

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Speaker 2: the words he used was cute as expletive, and he thought,

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Speaker 2: you know, what can I do here? So he he

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Speaker 2: had a golden feast ladle ear ring in his left lobe,

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Speaker 2: and so he took it out of his ear and

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Speaker 2: he gave it to her. And that's how I came

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Speaker 2: to be. I guess I was created from a golden

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Speaker 2: feast ladle earing my father gifted my Irish Jewish mother.

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Speaker 3: It's quite a meet cute story with a lot of

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Speaker 3: history behind it. When your father came to New York,

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Speaker 3: it's because he was an artist, Is that right?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? My dad became an artist by accident. So he

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Speaker 2: grew up in Cannon Lake and after finishing high school,

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Speaker 2: he was doing construction on the reds for like five

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Speaker 2: bucks an hour, and he was always good with his hands.

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Speaker 2: My grandfather worked in the woods. He knew how to

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Speaker 2: do every single part of the forestry, you know, lumber

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Speaker 2: process back when it was not mechanized as well, so

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Speaker 2: there was a lot of work involved with turning trees

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Speaker 2: into boards. And my dad soon realized after you know,

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Speaker 2: a couple of years into building homes on the Cannon

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Speaker 2: Lake Indian Reserve, he actually built the gymnasium that is

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Speaker 2: now the sea of our little reservation government in Candam Lake.

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Speaker 2: They gave him the kind of the dangerous jobs, you know,

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Speaker 2: maybe because he was the garbage can kid and they

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Speaker 2: wanted to pick on him, I guess, But he says

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Speaker 2: he would be like up on top of the rafters,

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Speaker 2: you know, like laying down the beams and stuff like that.

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Speaker 2: And he figured that that was not how he wanted

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Speaker 2: to live his life, and not where he wanted to

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Speaker 2: live his life, given the demons of his his birth

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Speaker 2: and his upbringing, and so he moved down to the

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Speaker 2: Vancouver area where he had this idea that he was

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Speaker 2: going to become a PE teacher. And when he showed

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Speaker 2: up at the community college where he was supposed to

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Speaker 2: take classes to become a PE teacher, they didn't actually

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Speaker 2: have the PE classes because those were only offered at

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Speaker 2: like another campus that was like a forty five minute

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Speaker 2: drive away from where he was, you know.

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Speaker 4: Enrolled, and instead they had enrolled him in a bunch

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Speaker 4: of art classes.

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Speaker 2: He'd always been, you know, decent in our class in

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Speaker 2: high school, always encouraged on up front. I think that

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Speaker 2: that's kind of a maybe a bit of a commonality

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Speaker 2: for Native people all over the place, you know. I

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Speaker 2: think we're kind of known for being good at arts

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Speaker 2: and crafts and those sorts of things. We definitely have

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Speaker 2: a lot of stuff that we make with our hands

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Speaker 2: in our culture.

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Speaker 4: So he ended up going.

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Speaker 2: With it and studied a printmaking process called stone lithography,

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Speaker 2: which is, you know, pretty old printmaking process.

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Speaker 4: It involves slabs.

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Speaker 2: Of stone that are treated with gum arabic and like

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Speaker 2: grease cran to make sort of layers of colors that

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Speaker 2: you then sort of layer on top of each other

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Speaker 2: to make it to prints. My dad was like really

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Speaker 2: good at it, so good in fact that he, you know,

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Speaker 2: got an offer to go to proper art school out

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Speaker 2: of community college. And he was choosing between the University

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Speaker 2: of British Columbia and Vancouver and the Emily Carr College

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Speaker 2: of Art and Design. And he thought Emily car was cooler,

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Speaker 2: and Emily Car is actually just as an aside, really

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Speaker 2: cool Canadian woman painter and artists from the early nineteen hundreds,

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Speaker 2: and so he decided to go downly Car and he

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Speaker 2: continued studying stone lithography. This was the eighties, so it

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Speaker 2: was actually a really consequential time in the art scene,

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Speaker 2: in particular the Native arts scene in Vancouver. He had

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Speaker 2: some friends who he played in a punk rockabilly band

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Speaker 2: with in Vancouver called the Red Cats. They'd go to

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Speaker 2: all the different like punk Indian bars around the city

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Speaker 2: and party and carry on and whatnot. And the guys

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Speaker 2: in the Red Cats were also themselves artists.

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Speaker 4: They were quag.

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Speaker 2: Giolf and new chah Nols, you know, guys from Vancouver

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Speaker 2: Island who came from very long ancient traditions of carving

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Speaker 2: and art making.

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Speaker 4: You know, these were guys.

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Speaker 2: Whose ancestors carved like the totem poles and those big

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Speaker 2: house posts and you know, masks and all these sorts

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Speaker 2: of things that you've probably seen in museums before. You know,

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Speaker 2: this is like one of the most recognizable artistic traditions

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Speaker 2: in the world, not just indigenous artistic traditions, but like

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Speaker 2: you know, you've probably seen a total poll before, Like

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Speaker 2: you know what I'm talking about. That's what these guys

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Speaker 2: came from. And so my dad was hanging out with

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Speaker 2: those guys. He was going to Emily Carr. You know,

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Speaker 2: he was playing in a punk band. He was a

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Speaker 2: cool dude. And it was Vancouver, so it was like

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Speaker 2: in the eighties, so it was a pretty cool, alternative,

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Speaker 2: queer place. And Dad wanted to chase that sort of

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Speaker 2: art world dream as far as it would take him.

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Speaker 2: And he already, you know, had very little interest in

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Speaker 2: being anywhere near where he came from. He wanted to

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Speaker 2: get as far away from there as he could. So

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Speaker 2: when he graduated, his printmaking professor put him into contact

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Speaker 2: with some printing presses all the way out in New York,

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Speaker 2: and so he got hooked up with a guy named

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Speaker 2: Tyler who Ken Tyler who ran Tyler graphics which printed

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Speaker 2: like huge you know, artists like Frank Stella and Robert

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Speaker 2: Motherwell and giant figures like that. And Dad basically moved

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Speaker 2: out there just like a kid, you know, not that

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Speaker 2: long ago from the rez, you know, fresh out of

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Speaker 2: art school in Vancouver, and she was really lonely, like

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Speaker 2: didn't know anybody. You know, this was way before the

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Speaker 2: Internet or anything like that. He didn't know anybody who'd

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Speaker 2: ever moved out to New York. In fact, when he

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Speaker 2: moved there, he drove out there with my uncle Greg

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Speaker 2: in an old buick, and you know, he was like

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Speaker 2: wondering where the heck he might find some friends and community.

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Speaker 2: And he was a bit of a partier and a drinker,

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Speaker 2: and he would be hanging out at this old bar

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Speaker 2: for old Irish guys in Peak Skill, I believe it was.

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Speaker 2: And eventually one night he was like, where do the

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Speaker 2: young people hang out around here? And they directed him

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Speaker 2: to the Shadow Brook, which is the bar that my

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Speaker 2: mother was the bartender at.

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Speaker 3: And your parents shared this sense of, you know, as

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Speaker 3: you right, looking for a world or family as far

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Speaker 3: away from the ones they came from as they possibly

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Speaker 3: could get. They each shared that for very different reasons.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think my dad was trying to

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Speaker 2: get out of the hell, frankly that Native people were

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Speaker 2: born into in his day. I mean, the man was

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Speaker 2: literally found minutes after birth and you know, on the

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Speaker 2: precipice of death and a trash incinerator, and that was

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Speaker 2: kind of how his life proceeded from that moment on him.

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Speaker 2: He was a survivor from the beginning.

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Speaker 3: Did he know that or was that something that sort

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Speaker 3: of followed him around like smoke until he later learned

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Speaker 3: it in adult life.

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Speaker 2: I think that's a great metaphor. It did kind of

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Speaker 2: follow him around like smoke. He didn't really know it,

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Speaker 2: but he knew that there was some kind of reason

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Speaker 2: why he was outcast and ostracized. And he did remember

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Speaker 2: being teased and called.

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Speaker 3: The garbage can kid, but he didn't know why.

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Speaker 4: But he didn't really know why.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, to this day, it's actually not

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Speaker 2: something that my my my grandmother who's still with us,

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Speaker 2: it's not something that she ever been able to talk about.

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Speaker 3: I'm interested in these invisible the stories that we carry,

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Speaker 3: the ones that we know that we're carrying and the

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Speaker 3: ones that we don't, and the powers that those stories

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Speaker 3: have over us, which you know, I think is threaded

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Speaker 3: throughout your book in terms of both the stories that

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Speaker 3: happen to us when we're alive and on the planet

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Speaker 3: and the ones that come before us and the ones

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Speaker 3: that we're haunted by. I mean, do you have a

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Speaker 3: sense of you know, your father, this is all before

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Speaker 3: you're born. I mean, some of the work that you've

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Speaker 3: done is imagining your parents as people who preceded you,

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Speaker 3: and then on and on ancestrally, you know, back through

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Speaker 3: time who who begat them, and who begot them and

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Speaker 3: who begat them?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think that for many cultures, but

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Speaker 2: especially for indigenous cultures. You know, our relationships to our

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Speaker 2: ancestors are of sacred significance. You know, that's how we

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Speaker 2: understand who we are, what our roles and responsibilities are

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Speaker 2: within our family and community. And you know, we also

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Speaker 2: feel a great responsibility to carry forward the memories of

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Speaker 2: the people who we come from, and that that takes

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Speaker 2: on even greater significance because of the fact that you know,

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Speaker 2: we were nearly killed off. Our cultures are to this day,

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Speaker 2: you know, deeply imperiled. My language squat machine, for example,

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Speaker 2: has only two remaining fluent speakers on the Indian Reserve

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Speaker 2: that my family comes from Cannon Lake, and so there's

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Speaker 2: this real imperative.

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Speaker 4: To know who.

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Speaker 2: Your family is, how you're related to people, where you

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Speaker 2: come from, you know your ancestors as far back as

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Speaker 2: you can remember them, because you know, society more broadly

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Speaker 2: has definitely made it difficult to know these things, has

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Speaker 2: in fact purposefully tried to stamp them out. At the

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Speaker 2: same time, there's this broader context of erasure of our

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Speaker 2: history as Native people, you know, by big institutions and

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Speaker 2: forces in society that through policy literally tried to do

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Speaker 2: that through churches that tried to, you know, wipe out

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Speaker 2: our belief systems and replace them with others. But I

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Speaker 2: think also, and this is one that I've thought about,

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Speaker 2: you know, a lot, in my life and in my work,

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Speaker 2: there's also within our own families because of the pain

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Speaker 2: of that history, because of what happened to us at

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Speaker 2: places like Saint Joseph's Mission, you know, the Indian residential

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Speaker 2: schools that we were taken to to wipe out our

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Speaker 2: way of life, and also what those things ended up

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Speaker 2: doing to us, and the kinds of harms that then

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Speaker 2: were carried generation to generation within our own families, you know,

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Speaker 2: are things that we don't really talk about. And so

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Speaker 2: the broader silence of colonialism, you know, this thing that

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Speaker 2: is a big topic of interest and study and concern

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Speaker 2: in you know, history and the humanities and definitely and

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Speaker 2: indigenous studies, you know, is also something that I see

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Speaker 2: not just being pressed upon us by outsiders, but also

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Speaker 2: something that we have truly internalized and internalized in part

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Speaker 2: because that's a survival strategy. When you were born in

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Speaker 2: an Indian residential school and found in the trash cinerator,

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Speaker 2: sometimes you forget things so that you know, life is

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Speaker 2: a little bit easier when you feel guilty for having

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Speaker 2: abandoned your own child in that circumstance, Sometimes you don't

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Speaker 2: talk about things because they're too difficult to talk about.

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Speaker 2: And so part of my work has been, i would

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Speaker 2: say to and not just like my you know, creative production,

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Speaker 2: but in my life, you know, has been to try

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Speaker 2: to understand those stories that we struggle to put words

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Speaker 2: to within our families.

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Speaker 3: When Julian's parents get married, his mom is going to

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Speaker 3: graduate school in Boston. His dad just left his job

284
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Speaker 3: as a printmaker. He wasn't one to take orders from

285
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Speaker 3: a boss, so he sets off on his own art career.

286
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Speaker 3: When his mom finishes grad school, she gets a job

287
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Speaker 3: in Saint Paul, Minnesota, working on the business side of

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Speaker 3: a newspaper. Julianne is born in nineteen ninety three, and

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Speaker 3: the family moves briefly to Miami and then to Oakland

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Speaker 3: in the Bay Area, where he grows up on the

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Speaker 3: age of three, all the way through high school. Julian

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Speaker 3: closely resembles his native father and looks almost nothing like

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Speaker 3: his light skinned, half Irish half Jewish mother, to the

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Speaker 3: point where when just Julianne and his mom are out together, well,

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Speaker 3: it confuses people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think to this day people maybe unless you

297
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Speaker 2: know that the relationship is mother and son, I think

298
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Speaker 2: maybe we're a bit of a confusing pair out in

299
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Speaker 2: the world. My dad, he's got such a big presence

300
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Speaker 2: that everybody assumes he's like six feet tall, and he's

301
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Speaker 2: got this enormous head of hair and these giant hands,

302
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Speaker 2: and he is really as a larger than life character.

303
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Speaker 2: You know. The guy looks like, or looked like, at

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Speaker 2: least when he was younger, kind of like a rock star.

305
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Speaker 2: And he really was, like you know, photographed for the

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Speaker 2: cover of Native People's Magazine when I was a little boy,

307
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Speaker 2: with like a backwards kangle cap and purple rock star

308
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Speaker 2: shaites on. He was a big character and he had,

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Speaker 2: you know, the name to go with it. I mean,

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Speaker 2: ed Archie noise Cat is a lot of name, and

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Speaker 2: you know here I was, you know, the little noise cat,

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Speaker 2: Julian Brave noise Cat with also an excessively Indian name.

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Speaker 2: And you know I also looked quite a bit like

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Speaker 2: my dad. I turned out brown like him. You know,

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Speaker 2: I started growing out my hair when I was a

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Speaker 2: little boy. And because he was an artist, you know,

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Speaker 2: I would be able to while my mom was at

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Speaker 2: work when I was when I was little, i'd hang

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Speaker 2: out with him in his studio. That was a lot

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Speaker 2: of my earliest memories are of me and my dad

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Speaker 2: hanging out in his studio, or you know, hopping in

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Speaker 2: the red pow Wow van with the HS player in

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Speaker 2: the back where I'd watched Land Before Time while we

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Speaker 2: drove to you know, Indian art shows all across western

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Speaker 2: North America. I really was like a mini Ed. You know,

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Speaker 2: people called me that I was like his little tiny

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Speaker 2: ADYBD sidekick, and you know that was that was my

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Speaker 2: understanding of who I was and of my identity and also.

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Speaker 4: Who I wanted to be.

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Speaker 2: You know, when I was a little kid, I imagined

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Speaker 2: myself someday becoming a carver and an artist like my father,

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Speaker 2: you know, because that was the way that it was

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Speaker 2: kind of done in native culture. You know, it was

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Speaker 2: a thing that was pasted father to son, you know,

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Speaker 2: across so many generations.

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Speaker 3: Do you think you had any sense? It's hard to answer,

337
00:18:42,320 --> 00:18:47,000
Speaker 3: I guess because memory is such a trickster itself. Because

338
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Speaker 3: you weren't growing up on kind of like you weren't

339
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Speaker 3: growing up on the res, you had a lot of

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Speaker 3: relatives who were a lot of cousins, a lot of

341
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Speaker 3: your father's family when you were a little kid. Did

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Speaker 3: you do you have a sense of the history that

343
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Speaker 3: you've described, or.

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Speaker 2: Of the residential schools and all that, yeah, or just

345
00:19:07,960 --> 00:19:11,440
Speaker 2: the pain of it, Yeah, I think the pain of it, yes,

346
00:19:11,760 --> 00:19:15,280
Speaker 2: the specific story of the residential school in my father's birth,

347
00:19:15,359 --> 00:19:19,199
Speaker 2: there no, But from a very young age, you know,

348
00:19:19,280 --> 00:19:23,680
Speaker 2: my dad and just the sort of broader family and

349
00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:26,680
Speaker 2: community contexts that I grew up in, you know, gave

350
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Speaker 2: me this sense that there were these historical and enduring

351
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Speaker 2: injustices that Native people faced and that here we were

352
00:19:33,720 --> 00:19:36,680
Speaker 2: proud to be you know, Indian and still fighting back.

353
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Speaker 2: You know, I think that was very much how I

354
00:19:38,520 --> 00:19:43,960
Speaker 2: understood myself from a very very small age. And you know,

355
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Speaker 2: I think Oakland also was the kind of place where

356
00:19:47,080 --> 00:19:51,359
Speaker 2: that sort of legacy was, at least in certain you

357
00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:54,560
Speaker 2: know parts of the city and certain you know, cultural

358
00:19:54,600 --> 00:19:57,440
Speaker 2: corners of it was something that was celebrated and embraced.

359
00:19:57,480 --> 00:19:59,960
Speaker 2: You know, Oakland has had a long counter cultural history

360
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Speaker 2: of you know, birthing the Black Panther Party and playing

361
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Speaker 2: a prominent role in the United farm Workers movement, and

362
00:20:05,600 --> 00:20:09,200
Speaker 2: also was a place that was significant in the Indian

363
00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:12,280
Speaker 2: movement as well. In nineteen sixty nine, there was this

364
00:20:12,320 --> 00:20:15,720
Speaker 2: big occupation of Alcatraz Island led by a group of

365
00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:18,440
Speaker 2: Native activists called the Indians of All Tribes. That was

366
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Speaker 2: kind of the starting point for the enduring resurgence of

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Speaker 2: Indigenous peoples in the United States and beyond.

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Speaker 4: And so I think that that was something that.

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Speaker 2: The place I grew up in and this sort of

370
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Speaker 2: like you know, being my dad's son, and look the

371
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:36,919
Speaker 2: way I did, you know I had this sort of

372
00:20:37,160 --> 00:20:40,560
Speaker 2: broader sense of it without maybe the specific understanding of

373
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Speaker 2: what exactly it was that my family had gone through

374
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Speaker 2: and my dad had gone through.

375
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Speaker 4: I mean, I was like five, after.

376
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Speaker 3: All, will be back in a moment with more family secrets.

377
00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:14,840
Speaker 3: Julian is five when his parents begin to gradually drift apart.

378
00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:18,400
Speaker 3: Splitting up is not a single moment, it's a process.

379
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:23,479
Speaker 3: His father starts drinking again and their marriage unravels, and

380
00:21:23,480 --> 00:21:26,280
Speaker 3: by the time Julian is six or seven, the divorce

381
00:21:26,320 --> 00:21:31,200
Speaker 3: is made final. Soon after, his father leaves Oakland, moves

382
00:21:31,200 --> 00:21:34,639
Speaker 3: to Santa Fe, starts a new family, and opens a

383
00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:39,000
Speaker 3: few galleries on Canyon Road that don't last. So Julian's

384
00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:42,560
Speaker 3: been left behind, left to watch his father's life expand

385
00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:48,680
Speaker 3: elsewhere away from him. Between ages five and twelve, Julian

386
00:21:48,760 --> 00:21:53,520
Speaker 3: carries something he later names dad sickness. It shows in

387
00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:58,399
Speaker 3: his eyes, a quiet ache, a missing and there's a moment,

388
00:21:58,560 --> 00:22:02,639
Speaker 3: when he's twelve, in the car after hockey practice, his

389
00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:06,600
Speaker 3: mother's softly, you need to be prepared for the real

390
00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:11,439
Speaker 3: possibility that your father dies, and in that moment the

391
00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:16,200
Speaker 3: ache becomes something else, not just loss, but precarity.

392
00:22:16,800 --> 00:22:19,679
Speaker 4: And fear after my dad left.

393
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Speaker 2: You know, here I was this half Native kid who

394
00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:26,560
Speaker 2: looked very native and looked like his dad, but his

395
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:28,680
Speaker 2: dad was gone, and I was with my white mom.

396
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:31,679
Speaker 2: And up until that point, you know, to be completely

397
00:22:31,720 --> 00:22:33,560
Speaker 2: honest with you, of my two parents, who I was

398
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:35,480
Speaker 2: closer to you, I was definitely closer to my dad

399
00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:39,439
Speaker 2: because of the reality of him being around making his

400
00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:43,160
Speaker 2: art and my mom being off at work. And I mean,

401
00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:45,600
Speaker 2: it's hard for me sometimes to find the words to

402
00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:48,359
Speaker 2: fully express this, but I was, you know, devastated, heartbroken,

403
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:52,840
Speaker 2: just completely cracked in half by this experience of losing

404
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:56,760
Speaker 2: my dad, of having him leave. And you know, he

405
00:22:56,800 --> 00:23:01,359
Speaker 2: didn't claim any custody of me after the divorce, and

406
00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:05,800
Speaker 2: I rarely saw him. There were entire years of my

407
00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:08,280
Speaker 2: childhood where I, you know, maybe saw him once or

408
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:11,119
Speaker 2: not at all. And in addition to that, you know,

409
00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:16,200
Speaker 2: he he was carrying on out there in a kind

410
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:21,080
Speaker 2: of constant state of partying and drinking and chasing fame

411
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:24,840
Speaker 2: and and as a consequence, you know, like putting himself

412
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:29,480
Speaker 2: in real peril with the law and with his life.

413
00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:33,159
Speaker 2: And so that was something that I grew up with

414
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:36,399
Speaker 2: some form of awareness about at the same time as

415
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:40,160
Speaker 2: I like also have this kind of belief, I guess

416
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:43,360
Speaker 2: that like there was no possible way that like my

417
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:47,320
Speaker 2: mythological father could die because he was my mythological father,

418
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 2: you know. He told me one time, I remember very vividly.

419
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:54,840
Speaker 2: We were at a hockey tournament and it was like

420
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:57,280
Speaker 2: he agreed, I guess to be the parent for the

421
00:23:57,280 --> 00:24:00,480
Speaker 2: hockey tournament. And I was, ironically, i should say, also

422
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:03,119
Speaker 2: playing for a team called the California gold Rush. It

423
00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:05,600
Speaker 2: was like an all star team. And here I was

424
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:07,760
Speaker 2: a little Indian kid on a team called the California

425
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:11,560
Speaker 2: gold Rush. And Dad at the time was he loved

426
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 2: to speed everywhere. I don't really know why, but I

427
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:17,480
Speaker 2: remember asking him, like why he wasn't scared to be

428
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 2: pulled over by the cops, and he said, the cops

429
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 2: will never catch me some because I have Crazy Horse medicine,

430
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:26,640
Speaker 2: by which he meant that he had some form of

431
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 2: like spiritual protection that would protect him from ever being

432
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:35,400
Speaker 2: commandeered by law enforcement, you know, kind of the way

433
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 2: that like crazy Horse was able to you know, the

434
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:41,560
Speaker 2: Oglala military leader, sort of a mythological figure who was

435
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:46,120
Speaker 2: never photographed historically, was able to elude the seventh Cavalry

436
00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:48,880
Speaker 2: in the United States military, you know, in the eighteen

437
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:52,680
Speaker 2: seventies when the Lakota people were at war with this country.

438
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:54,879
Speaker 2: And you know, there's also a little bit of irony

439
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:56,960
Speaker 2: in that because of course at the end, a crazy

440
00:24:56,960 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 2: horse was actually stabbed in the back.

441
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:04,159
Speaker 3: After the divorce, it continues to be very important to

442
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 3: Julian's mom that he stayed connected to his Native American heritage,

443
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:10,879
Speaker 3: so that, as he put it, he won't be like

444
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 3: an apple red on the outside and white on the inside.

445
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:18,639
Speaker 2: My mom was I've asked her about this before and

446
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:22,719
Speaker 2: she says, you know that it wasn't necessarily something that

447
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 2: she thought all the way through, Like, it wasn't something

448
00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:25,920
Speaker 2: planned out.

449
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:28,200
Speaker 4: It was something more instinctual.

450
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:30,960
Speaker 2: And I think something in her told her that, you know,

451
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 2: here she was this white lady with you know, obviously

452
00:25:33,920 --> 00:25:37,679
Speaker 2: native kid, absent to his native father, a thousand miles

453
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:41,919
Speaker 2: away from the reservation that his family called home. And

454
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:45,399
Speaker 2: if she didn't make significant efforts to connect me to

455
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:48,800
Speaker 2: my family and the res that I come from, which

456
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 2: you know, is a twenty five hour drive from Oakland, California.

457
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:53,920
Speaker 2: By the way, it's not an easy journey, and it's

458
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 2: to a very remote and cold part of the continent.

459
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 2: You know, if she didn't make efforts to keep me

460
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:04,720
Speaker 2: connected to my identity and culture as well, that I

461
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 2: was going to have some resentment about that. So in

462
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:09,880
Speaker 2: addition to making sure that we went home by home,

463
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:12,159
Speaker 2: I mean Candam Lake on the you know, on the

464
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:15,640
Speaker 2: winter holidays and during summers too. You know, she made

465
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:18,200
Speaker 2: it possible for me to have a relationship with the

466
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 2: family of you know, my family, the family of the

467
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 2: man who left. And then also in Oakland, she was

468
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:27,200
Speaker 2: very thoughtful about bringing me down to the Inner Tribal

469
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:30,440
Speaker 2: Friendship House, which is one of the oldest urban Indian

470
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 2: community centers in the country. It's right on International Boulevard

471
00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 2: in Oakland, California. And on Thursday nights they would have

472
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 2: powow drum and dance practice at IFH as it's called, and.

473
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:43,960
Speaker 4: I would go with my mom.

474
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:47,919
Speaker 2: And for the first number of months, you know, I

475
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:51,879
Speaker 2: was like too scared to get up from her lap

476
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 2: to like try to dance or try to you know,

477
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 2: engage in our culture in that way. But slowly and

478
00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 2: steadily over the years I ended up taking more of

479
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:02,639
Speaker 2: an interest in it, and my mom ended up getting

480
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 2: involved with another Native man who ended up becoming a

481
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:07,119
Speaker 2: little bit of like a father figure for me for

482
00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 2: a number of pivotal years, and he encouraged me to

483
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 2: become a powow dancer, which is something that is something

484
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:16,520
Speaker 2: I still do to this day. I've actually traveled now

485
00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:21,520
Speaker 2: all over North America to dance at celebrations, and those

486
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 2: two things, you know, the powow, the inner travel frendship house,

487
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 2: and you know, the time on Cannon Lake with my

488
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:32,359
Speaker 2: aunts and uncles and my and my my cousins and

489
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:35,959
Speaker 2: all that really helped me hold on to who I

490
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 2: am in a way that I think made it possible

491
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:40,359
Speaker 2: for me to not lose my way.

492
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really extraordinary. And both of those father you know,

493
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 3: your father, and Coco, your mother's partner.

494
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:51,680
Speaker 4: You know, you're young.

495
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:55,880
Speaker 3: When she's with Coco, you describe as you didn't mistake

496
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 3: him for your dad, but he was the closest thing

497
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 3: to a dad that you have. And in both cases

498
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 3: those relationships are complicated by I guess the way that

499
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 3: I would put it is the pain. To call it

500
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 3: intergenerational trauma feels almost just too reductive.

501
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 2: I know this is worth pointing out. You know, like

502
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 2: my mom says, she went to a stand up thing

503
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 2: the other week and there's a woman comedian and she

504
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:26,439
Speaker 2: makes the joke where she, you know, asks everybody in

505
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:29,440
Speaker 2: the audience who. She says, I'm going to prove to

506
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 2: you that being a good man is the hardest job

507
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:33,919
Speaker 2: in the world. And you know, if you if you

508
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:35,639
Speaker 2: know a you know a good woman, you know, if

509
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:37,159
Speaker 2: you had a good mother, like raise her hand. You know,

510
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 2: pretty much everybody in the audience probably raises their hand.

511
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 2: And then he says, okay, well raise her hand.

512
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 4: If you know, if you know a bad man, everybody

513
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:46,000
Speaker 4: in the audience raises their hand.

514
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 2: And you know, I think it is it is just

515
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 2: as a starting point, I think it is hard. There

516
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 2: is something uniquely challenging for whatever reason. I'm just not

517
00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 2: an excuse to navigate masculinity in this world. I think

518
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 2: that's a actually true when you add into the equation

519
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 2: the centuries of efforts to wipe our people off the

520
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 2: map and the very confusing position that that puts Indian

521
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 2: men into. When I would say, for my father and

522
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 2: for Coco and others, you know, we struggle to play

523
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 2: a role of provider. Because of the you know, economic

524
00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 2: realities of colonization, we are viewed as you know, potentially

525
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 2: violent threats to the general order of things. We run

526
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 2: into trouble with the law partially as a consequence, and

527
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 2: you know, we struggle more than the average with the

528
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:43,719
Speaker 2: kinds of addictions and you know, substance abuse issues that

529
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 2: make life difficult for us and for people around us.

530
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 2: And you can add into that also like you know,

531
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 2: we suffer at higher rates from you know, sexual abuse

532
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 2: happening in our in our families and in our pasts.

533
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 2: And at a certain point when there's a really low

534
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 2: density and saturation of men who have been healthy and

535
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 2: men who have you been present, you know, fathering their kids.

536
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 2: You know, my grandfather had nineteen kids I could name,

537
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 2: and definitely more than that, and raised a minority of

538
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 2: the who's you know, it becomes a real challenging thing

539
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 2: to be a healthy man in the world, a healthy

540
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 2: Indian man. And you know, as a thirty two year

541
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 2: old Indian man now myself, who's thinking about the future

542
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 2: and what kind of dad I might be and what

543
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 2: kind of man I want to be in the world

544
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 2: and all that, it's hard, you know, which is not

545
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 2: an excuse. It's just a statement of what this history

546
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:45,719
Speaker 2: has put us into a position of.

547
00:30:50,440 --> 00:31:06,080
Speaker 3: We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets.

548
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 3: Julian goes to Columbia University. Well, he's essentially living in

549
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:15,800
Speaker 3: two worlds. He's always at risk of losing his indianness,

550
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 3: especially with his father hardly being in his life at all.

551
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 2: My dad was pretty absent from the time that he

552
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 2: left until I was a full on adult. You know,

553
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 2: I had to lend him money to come to my

554
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:32,440
Speaker 2: own high school graduation. You know, he was an artists still,

555
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 2: and somehow I managed to convince when I was in

556
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:38,640
Speaker 2: college the folks at Columbia University to have him come

557
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 2: give an artist talk. And he was so broke at

558
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:44,719
Speaker 2: that point that, hey, they paid for everything other than

559
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:48,240
Speaker 2: I guess the trip to the airport from his house,

560
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 2: and he had so little money to his name that

561
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 2: he actually couldn't even make that, which was you know

562
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:53,840
Speaker 2: the time.

563
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 4: I was a little embarrassed by that.

564
00:31:55,560 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 2: And you know, he had a number of relationships marriages

565
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 2: that didn't quite work out.

566
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:04,479
Speaker 4: Maybe it is a nice way to put that in.

567
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 2: And you know, he also struggled to parent, my little

568
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 2: sister who was in Santa Fe but who you know

569
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:16,120
Speaker 2: who he was not maybe the most constructive force in

570
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 2: her life either.

571
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 4: I guess there are certain ways.

572
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 2: That, like, you can look at that situation and it's

573
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:22,880
Speaker 2: just kind of like, man, what a broken situation. But

574
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 2: there's also ways that you could look at it that

575
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 2: are actually kind of like maybe sometimes entertaining. So like,

576
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 2: for example, when I was on summer break once in college.

577
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 2: In college, I had one of my girlfriends in college

578
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 2: lived in Las Vegas, and so I was visiting her,

579
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 2: and my dad happened to be driving through from doing

580
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 2: some work up in Washington State going back down.

581
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:45,120
Speaker 4: To New Mexico. Las Vegas is kind of like the

582
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 4: halfway point.

583
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 2: And I got a call from his wife at the

584
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 2: time now definitely ex wife, and she told me that

585
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 2: he got pulled over in a little town called Goldfield, Nevada,

586
00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 2: which is about as tiny as you might imagine it

587
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:02,480
Speaker 2: in your head. I bet they like tested nukes not

588
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 2: that far from Goldfield, and he had been pulled over

589
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 2: with like a pound of weed in the back of

590
00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 2: his in the back of his ride and cloud of

591
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:14,959
Speaker 2: purple haze trailing behind, and it was it was a

592
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 2: like a Thursday evening that he'd gotten pulled over, and

593
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 2: so the next day I drove it was like three

594
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 2: hours from Vegas to Goldfield and had to bail him

595
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 2: and his sidekick, which at the time was a long

596
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 2: hair in Chihuahua named Angus out of jail in.

597
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 4: Goldfield, Nevada. Like I had to get the bail and everything.

598
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 2: It was like a kind of classically on paperworked and

599
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 2: dysfunctional situation. So like I picked my dad up off

600
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:40,680
Speaker 2: the side of the road, and then we had to

601
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:42,920
Speaker 2: go get his truck which was impounded. But the truck

602
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 2: was not in his name because he traded some Pueblo guy,

603
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:47,360
Speaker 2: like some art for it, and so he had to

604
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 2: like call that guy so that he would say that

605
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 2: it wasn't stolen. And you know, it was like a

606
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:55,080
Speaker 2: Friday afternoon in Goldfield, Nevada. So if we didn't get

607
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 2: all this done by five o'clock, like we were going

608
00:33:57,600 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 2: to be stuck in this tiny town.

609
00:33:59,280 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 4: For the whole weekend.

610
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 2: And then we had to go like liberate the dog

611
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 2: who had been sent to the pound, and we went

612
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 2: and looked for the dog with a pound and the

613
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:10,520
Speaker 2: dog was not at the pound. And so here was

614
00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:13,719
Speaker 2: my dad, you know, with this truck absent his sidekick,

615
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:17,080
Speaker 2: like just totally broken because he thought he was gonna

616
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 2: be losing his you know, overweight, long hair chihuahua. And

617
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:25,239
Speaker 2: we start making the drive down to like you know,

618
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 2: Las Vegas, and I'm trying to like you know, get

619
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 2: him to make peace with or come to terms with

620
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 2: in some way shape or form that like the dog's gone.

621
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:38,280
Speaker 2: And we get a call from the game warden about

622
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:40,279
Speaker 2: like thirty minutes down the road, and it turns out

623
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 2: that Angus had gotten his long hair caught in some

624
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:47,399
Speaker 2: burrs in the doggy pound, which was right by where

625
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 2: they kept the horse stable. And so the game warden,

626
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 2: who was like this lovely woman, had taken him to

627
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 2: like the dogs alon, and so like my dad was

628
00:34:59,920 --> 00:35:02,840
Speaker 2: like reunited with his like little fat chihuahua who like

629
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:05,080
Speaker 2: he was like proud cut too. So you think he

630
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 2: still had maybe still had his balls at that point.

631
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 2: So he pulls up, hangs pulls up with like his

632
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:12,359
Speaker 2: like nuts out, you know, it's a long tongue hanging out.

633
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 2: He's got like one patch over his eye like some

634
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:17,279
Speaker 2: kind of you know, bandit, and my dad breaks down

635
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 2: and is crying and stuff, and we go get some

636
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 2: ice cream even though we're you know, lactose and tawerant,

637
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 2: and we drive.

638
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:23,520
Speaker 4: Back to Vegas.

639
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 2: So those are the kinds of you know, adventures that

640
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 2: were to be had with my dad back in that era,

641
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 2: which I think is you know, that's kind of who

642
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 2: he is, you know, like on one hand, who on

643
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:36,920
Speaker 2: the other hand, like, I don't know, it's kind of

644
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 2: entertaining in a way. I think I always understood my

645
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 2: dad to be this kind of like legendary figure, this

646
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:45,840
Speaker 2: trickster in a sense who was He was a survivor,

647
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:47,759
Speaker 2: and he'd gone through a lot, and he'd made it

648
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 2: off the res to meet my mom, to make my

649
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:52,719
Speaker 2: life possible, and you know, he made beautiful art and

650
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 2: still does, and so he was capable of great things

651
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:58,239
Speaker 2: and he was also, at the same time, you know,

652
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 2: capable of destroying lot. And I think I always kind

653
00:36:02,120 --> 00:36:06,839
Speaker 2: of understood him that way from a pretty young age.

654
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:10,440
Speaker 2: And I think that reading and consuming other Native stories

655
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 2: I think helped me contextualize him. You know, my mom,

656
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 2: in addition to being really thoughtful about bringing me home

657
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:19,759
Speaker 2: and to the industravel friendship house and supporting me with

658
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 2: my powow dancing being being Regalia. She also introduced me

659
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 2: to like Sherman Alexei and encouraged me to read and write.

660
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:30,760
Speaker 2: And many years later, you know, when I was trying

661
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 2: to understand how I would tell the story of this

662
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:39,720
Speaker 2: mythological father figure who is still here with me, I

663
00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 2: started reading, among other things, the Coyote stories, like these

664
00:36:43,239 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 2: oral histories about the trickster ancestor of my people who

665
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:50,439
Speaker 2: had helped create the world and who had also gotten

666
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 2: into a lot of trouble while doing it. And as

667
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 2: I was reading these stories and hanging out with my

668
00:36:56,160 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 2: dad and learning more about his story because I chose

669
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 2: to move in with him for two years when I

670
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 2: was twenty eight, I kept like realizing, I kept seeing

671
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:10,200
Speaker 2: in these stories about you know, this mythological trickster ancestor,

672
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:13,840
Speaker 2: so many qualities that I saw in my father, and

673
00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 2: I guess, in a way stories themselves, you know, the

674
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:21,319
Speaker 2: ability to turn something into a narrative, to make sense

675
00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 2: of it in that kind of way. It doesn't make

676
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 2: it okay necessarily. It doesn't like take away the pain.

677
00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:30,839
Speaker 2: It doesn't relieve the person of responsibility. But I think

678
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:35,960
Speaker 2: it helps understand them as a full, you know, human

679
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 2: and also then gives me the framework within which I

680
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:44,880
Speaker 2: can still love him despite the complexities inherent in that

681
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 2: kind of a relationship.

682
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:53,400
Speaker 3: Julian's father only learned the details of his origin story

683
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:57,520
Speaker 3: in recent years. It has floated around the res of course,

684
00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:00,880
Speaker 3: but he has never put the pieces together, nor has Julian.

685
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 3: But in an extraordinary intersection of a news story, the

686
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:08,759
Speaker 3: making of a film, and the asking of the right questions,

687
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 3: Ed's story finally reveals itself, and as is so often

688
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:16,920
Speaker 3: the case with missing pieces of a narrative, it makes

689
00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 3: all kinds of sense and meaning.

690
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 2: So, you know, about four years ago, there was a

691
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:30,960
Speaker 2: discovery of over two hundred potential unmarked graves at an

692
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 2: Indian residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia, which is actually

693
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 2: another school that my family was sent to. It's where

694
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:40,799
Speaker 2: my my grandmother finished high school and studied nursing. And

695
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 2: it became an international news event, like you know, there's

696
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 2: a New York Times headline, and there was a number

697
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:50,319
Speaker 2: of discoveries at other schools around the country after that,

698
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 2: and it kind of reawakened I guess this set of

699
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 2: questions that lived in so many Native families like my own,

700
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 2: about what it was that are you know, our grandparents,

701
00:39:01,239 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 2: our families, our parents endured at these institutions, and it

702
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:08,840
Speaker 2: definitely did that for my dad. And so over the

703
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:11,560
Speaker 2: last four years, I was working on a documentary called

704
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:13,880
Speaker 2: Sugarcane at the same time as I was writing this

705
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 2: book We Survived the Night, and the documentary happened to

706
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:22,840
Speaker 2: be following the investigation at the mission school that my

707
00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:25,080
Speaker 2: family was sent to and where my father was born.

708
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 2: You know, that was actually not by my by design.

709
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 2: My co director reached out to me and asked me

710
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 2: if I wanted to make a documentary on the subject

711
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:34,600
Speaker 2: with her, And then when I got back to her

712
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 2: and said yes, she said, okay, I've identified a first

713
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:38,480
Speaker 2: nation and it's falling a search and it's happening at

714
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 2: Saint Joseph's Mission, which was like, you know, there was

715
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty nine of these schools across Canada,

716
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 2: so that was like a total I mean, like what

717
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:46,799
Speaker 2: are the chances? Right?

718
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:47,880
Speaker 4: Kind of felt like fate.

719
00:39:48,440 --> 00:39:52,759
Speaker 2: So I was working on this documentary that was inherently

720
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 2: you know, personal, and gave me the opportunity to maybe

721
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 2: find some answers for for my father, who, like so

722
00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 2: many other Native people who were following this news event,

723
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:10,600
Speaker 2: wanted answers. The trouble was that my grandmother Mi Kaa,

724
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 2: who you know, was sent to Saint Joseph's Mission and

725
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:17,880
Speaker 2: has her own trauma from that, is still with us,

726
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:20,360
Speaker 2: and I also feel a great deal of love and

727
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:22,960
Speaker 2: loyalty for her. You know, she's the one who she's

728
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:24,839
Speaker 2: the matriarch of our family. She's the one who made

729
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:28,319
Speaker 2: it possible for me to you know, conclude one Marchen,

730
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 2: to speak my Suqutch language. You know. So it was

731
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,880
Speaker 2: a very slow and cautious process of like figuring out

732
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:38,040
Speaker 2: what there was to be learned about my dad's birth.

733
00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 2: Because we knew that he had been born potentially at

734
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:46,480
Speaker 2: or near the school and found in a in a dumpster.

735
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:49,920
Speaker 2: That was kind of all we knew, and we wanted

736
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 2: to figure out more. And so a couple of years

737
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 2: into an investigation that was unfolding at Saint Joseph's Mission

738
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 2: and the making of this documentary, the investigators with the

739
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 2: Williamslake First Nation who were leading that investigation, told me

740
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 2: that someone had turned in an article about the birth

741
00:41:07,640 --> 00:41:10,000
Speaker 2: of a baby at and discovery of a baby at

742
00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:13,799
Speaker 2: Saint Joseph's Mission, And so we went and got the

743
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:17,760
Speaker 2: article that told the story. There was actually literally only

744
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:21,400
Speaker 2: one copy of it left at the Williams Lake Tribune Archives,

745
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 2: and if there had ever been a fire there in

746
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 2: the years since nineteen fifty.

747
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:26,959
Speaker 4: Nine, it would have been gone.

748
00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 2: And it turned out to be the story of my

749
00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 2: father's birth and discovery and the trash incinerator. They called

750
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 2: him Baby X in the story. Actually, the part about

751
00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:40,360
Speaker 2: it that's also really crazy is that the story says

752
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 2: that the night watchman who found him said his cries

753
00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:48,880
Speaker 2: for life sounded like a cat, which is especially crazy

754
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 2: because our last name, Noise Cat, actually has nothing to

755
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:56,400
Speaker 2: do with noises or cats. It was originally just an

756
00:41:56,400 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 2: ancestral named Noiskit that goes way back in time, but

757
00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:04,400
Speaker 2: then was written down wrong by the missionaries and became Noisect.

758
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:09,799
Speaker 2: So that was another sort of wild turn that I

759
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:14,759
Speaker 2: guess points towards other things that maybe exist out here.

760
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:16,240
Speaker 4: In this world or not in this world.

761
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and that Native people have always acknowledged in

762
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:28,560
Speaker 2: our own ways, in our own storytelling traditions.

763
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 3: For a few years Julian lives with his father, who

764
00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:35,440
Speaker 3: is trying, really trying to put the pieces of his

765
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 3: life back together. It's not easy, not after so many acts,

766
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:43,839
Speaker 3: so many false starts. But it turns out that this

767
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:48,160
Speaker 3: is a false start too. Once again, his father leaves,

768
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 3: this time to pursue a relationship with a woman. Julian

769
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 3: feels it immediately, the anger, the abandonment, the sting of

770
00:42:59,120 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 3: being left again. But later Julian begins to shape meaning

771
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:10,239
Speaker 3: from the instability. He finds language, perspective, maybe even forgiveness,

772
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 3: within the myth of the Coyote people, tricksters, survivors, those

773
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:19,880
Speaker 3: who blur the line between creation and destruction, And in

774
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:23,919
Speaker 3: that myth he begins to see his father too, not

775
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:26,560
Speaker 3: just as the man who vanished, but as part of

776
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:31,400
Speaker 3: something older, something wild and deeply human, a legacy of

777
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:35,360
Speaker 3: longing and imperfection, passed down like a story.

778
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:40,399
Speaker 2: I think I always hoped that me and my dad would,

779
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:44,440
Speaker 2: you know, have some sort of happy together ending. And

780
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:47,520
Speaker 2: in the Indian country, in native context, there's a lot

781
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 2: of examples of intergenerational families wherein you know, there's a

782
00:43:52,120 --> 00:43:54,319
Speaker 2: parent and a kid and grandkids and all that sort

783
00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 2: of stuff. And I imagined that we might be able

784
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 2: to have something like that, and you.

785
00:43:58,600 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 4: Know, I was.

786
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:02,439
Speaker 2: I was pretty broken when when that didn't work out,

787
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:05,960
Speaker 2: as as maybe unrealistic of an expectation as that was

788
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:10,239
Speaker 2: on my part, given our history and his needs as well. Like,

789
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:12,480
Speaker 2: I think it's totally reasonable that he would want to

790
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 2: have a relationship, and I think it's been a really

791
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:18,400
Speaker 2: good and healthy one for him. And yet, you know,

792
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:21,360
Speaker 2: like I look at that and it hurts me. And

793
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:24,279
Speaker 2: I also look at that and I see, you know,

794
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:28,719
Speaker 2: the continuation of a tradition that is complicated, you know,

795
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:32,359
Speaker 2: but that is also germane to who we are. I

796
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:35,719
Speaker 2: see in my dad making the moves he has to

797
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:38,279
Speaker 2: make to survive, which I imagine is you know, I know,

798
00:44:38,719 --> 00:44:41,120
Speaker 2: is what his father had to do and what you know,

799
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:44,799
Speaker 2: generations going back for over a hundred years had to do.

800
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:49,760
Speaker 2: I see the ways that he has remade and unmade

801
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 2: and transformed himself and his life over and over and

802
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 2: over again. That I see the legacy of fingers like

803
00:44:57,160 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 2: the trickster coyote who was doing that, you know, left

804
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:04,919
Speaker 2: and right in our mythology about him. And I also see,

805
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:09,800
Speaker 2: you know, the contradictions in somebody who has created immense

806
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:12,440
Speaker 2: beauty in their life, who made my life possible, who

807
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:16,360
Speaker 2: still to this day makes incredible art, who is a

808
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:19,720
Speaker 2: great hang. You know, my dad might be a complicated figure,

809
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 2: but he's like really fun dying out with.

810
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:25,760
Speaker 4: He's really charismatic, and then you know, therefore.

811
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:27,799
Speaker 2: Also is able to get away with with more than

812
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:32,800
Speaker 2: the average. And ultimately, you know, I, despite the pain

813
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:35,480
Speaker 2: that it has caused me and still causes me at times,

814
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:38,560
Speaker 2: I can't help but love that and love that figure,

815
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 2: and know that that is who I come from. And

816
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:43,319
Speaker 2: also if I'm being you know, honest, I can't help

817
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:45,000
Speaker 2: but look in the mirror and see some of that,

818
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:48,000
Speaker 2: you know, in myself, you know, not to that degree

819
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:50,279
Speaker 2: and not in the same way, but that's who I

820
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:53,880
Speaker 2: come from too, And you know, I guess like the

821
00:45:53,920 --> 00:45:56,960
Speaker 2: thing about like families and ancestors and all that sort

822
00:45:57,000 --> 00:45:59,200
Speaker 2: of stuff is like they hand you down what they

823
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:03,879
Speaker 2: hand you down, and you gotta make of that what

824
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 2: you're going to make of it. And you also need

825
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 2: to find the room in your heart, especially if you

826
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:13,840
Speaker 2: come from a tradition like mine, where families kind of everything.

827
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:15,840
Speaker 4: You know, if we don't have each other. We got nothing.

828
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:18,880
Speaker 2: You got to find the room in your heart to love,

829
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:22,359
Speaker 2: to love the people who you come from, as as

830
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:29,240
Speaker 2: complicated and tricksterly as they can be at times.

831
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:37,480
Speaker 3: Here's Julian reading one last passage from We Survived the Night.

832
00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 2: The noise came from behind the mission. It sounded like

833
00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:46,799
Speaker 2: a cat. I've imagined it countless times. At about half

834
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 2: past eleven, the night watchman pulled his car around back

835
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:53,680
Speaker 2: of Saint Joseph's Mission, one of the Indian residential schools

836
00:46:53,719 --> 00:46:56,640
Speaker 2: in British Columbia, Canada, where my family was sent to

837
00:46:56,719 --> 00:47:00,480
Speaker 2: unlearn our Indian ways. The four story the building was

838
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:04,320
Speaker 2: all white and right angles, unadorned save for a big

839
00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:07,799
Speaker 2: cross looming over the entrance in blue green trim that,

840
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 2: from a distance made the campus look like a hunk

841
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:13,080
Speaker 2: of moldy cheese plopped in the middle of the valley.

842
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:17,960
Speaker 2: The night of August sixteenth, nineteen fifty nine, Tony followed

843
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 2: that whale, flashlight in hand. Sound and light led him

844
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:24,640
Speaker 2: inside the service way to a garbage burner about the

845
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 2: size of an office desk, where trash from the mission

846
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:32,279
Speaker 2: was turned to ash. He opened it, casting rays of

847
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 2: light onto rubbish and soot. Somewhere near the top of

848
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 2: the pile was an ice cream carton, repurposed as a

849
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:42,720
Speaker 2: makeshift wastebasket and discarded no more than twenty minutes before.

850
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 2: Within was a newborn. The authorities called him Baby X,

851
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:50,400
Speaker 2: and he was my father.

852
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:03,200
Speaker 3: Family Secret is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly Zaccur is

853
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 3: the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer.

854
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:08,799
Speaker 3: If you have a family secret you'd like to share,

855
00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 3: please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear

856
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 3: on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight

857
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 3: eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also

858
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:23,839
Speaker 3: find me on Instagram at Danny Ryder. And if you'd

859
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:26,320
Speaker 3: like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast,

860
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:28,520
Speaker 3: check out my memoir Inheritance.

861
00:48:37,160 --> 00:48:41,440
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

862
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.