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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Sanny and Samantha. I welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: I Never Told You production of iHeartRadio and today for

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Speaker 1: our book Club, which may or may not come out December.

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Speaker 1: You know, holidays coming around, a lot of scheduling happening.

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Speaker 1: We are talking about a beautiful children's book from twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty two, Finding My Dance, written by Rhea Thundercloud and

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Speaker 1: illustrated by Khalila J.

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Speaker 2: Fuller.

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Speaker 1: It follows the story of a young Indigenous woman, Wakeja

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Speaker 1: Haja Peewinga, which is Rio's ho Chunk name, and her

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Speaker 1: journey from a child to an adult with a child,

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Speaker 1: and her different experiences with dance, as well as her

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Speaker 1: becoming a mother. It is largely autobiographical based on Thundercloud's

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Speaker 1: own experiences with dance. She is a professional Indigenous dancer.

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Speaker 1: You can look up videos of her really amazing and

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Speaker 1: thank you to the read along of this book that

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Speaker 1: she does, which is really lovely and very helpful. For

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Speaker 1: pronunciations and thank you. We always try to get those right,

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Speaker 1: but sometimes you can't find them anywhere, but here. It's wonderful.

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Speaker 1: You can look it up, just fantastic. You can also

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Speaker 1: look up photographs she does dance from both northern and

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Speaker 1: southern styles of Indigenous dances, which honors her heritage. And

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Speaker 1: she's also she's just done a lot of other stuff.

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Speaker 1: She's collaborated with PBS. She's talked about missing and murdered

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Speaker 1: Indigenous women. She's talked about Indigenous sensuality and sexuality. She's

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Speaker 1: got a lot of interviews and things that you can find.

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Speaker 1: So look her up and also look this book. It's

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Speaker 1: really really lovely.

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Speaker 3: It is.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because this is a shorter book, this will be

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Speaker 1: a shorter episode, but always recommend it. I highly recommend it.

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Speaker 1: So Ria this and also the character who again that's

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Speaker 1: her name, her ho Junk name. She is from the

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Speaker 1: Ho Chunk Nation in Wisconsin and the San Dio Pueblo

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Speaker 1: in New Mexico, and as early as four, her mother

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Speaker 1: encouraged her to get into dancing. She gifted her this

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Speaker 1: orange jingle dress, which is a traditional style of dress.

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Speaker 1: Her mother told her that the dress was healing and

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Speaker 1: would bless anyone who watched her dance in it. She

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Speaker 1: talks about the power and importance of dancing in a

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Speaker 1: powow circle, which is something she does, I believe. At

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Speaker 1: the age of four, she starts very early, while she

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Speaker 1: was nervous the first time. With the support of her family,

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Speaker 1: she had a wonderful experience and went on tour doing

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Speaker 1: their dances and she stayed with friends and family along

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Speaker 1: the way. She traveled all over. When she was thirteen,

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Speaker 1: she received her fancy shawl, which is a type of

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Speaker 1: shawl that is reminiscent of a butterfly's wings in movement

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Speaker 1: and in looks. Wakaja then tries all different types of

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Speaker 1: dance styles from modern to jazz, everything in between, and

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Speaker 1: she was and is successful too, making it to a

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Speaker 1: competitive team after an audition and winning a prestigious award

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Speaker 1: with her very first dance solo. So it's just a

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Speaker 1: story of her falling in love with dance, finding all

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Speaker 1: these different types of dance and finding a way to

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Speaker 1: express herself, stay true to her heritage, connect with other

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Speaker 1: people and travel and you know, ultimately tell this story

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Speaker 1: and yes she does have a child at the end

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Speaker 1: and talks about how she what she wants for her

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Speaker 1: and what she wants when it comes to her journey,

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Speaker 1: whatever that might look like, how she wants that to

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Speaker 1: be for her, and and the way she's taking to

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Speaker 1: improve it. Versus what she what her journey was. So

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Speaker 1: that's it. It's beautiful, it's beautifully illustrated.

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Speaker 3: Illustrations are gorgeous.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I like how. I like how. It's just

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Speaker 2: a lot of different formats.

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Speaker 1: So in some it will be like a two pager

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Speaker 1: and a really colorful like pow wow circle, and some

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Speaker 1: it's like a bunch of smaller illustrations on one page.

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Speaker 1: That's just a lot of he variety that I really appreciated.

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Speaker 1: So the themes, I would say, the big theme is

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Speaker 1: a dance that was art or expression.

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Speaker 2: She is.

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Speaker 1: That's just something she immediately loved and wanted to get into,

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Speaker 1: and people in her life supported her in but she

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Speaker 1: just talked about how immediately she wanted this and she

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Speaker 1: knew that she wanted this, and to see her journey

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Speaker 1: of all of the different things she tried, she she

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Speaker 1: has this. She has a quote in there dance isn't

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Speaker 1: one thing.

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Speaker 2: And she also.

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Speaker 1: Expresses kind of her her hardship and trying to fit

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Speaker 1: into classical dance styles because they were much more rigid

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Speaker 1: than she was used to. They had much more rules,

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Speaker 1: and that was not how she grew up in these

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Speaker 1: indigenous dance styles.

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Speaker 3: Right, I've talked about how I enjoyed dancing and is

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Speaker 3: something that helps me my anxiety. But when we talk

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Speaker 3: about the root of dance and where it came from

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Speaker 3: and its forms, and we don't give enough credit for

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Speaker 3: its origins and its beginnings and why they did it.

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Speaker 3: These were traditional, almost like religious, a part of their culture,

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Speaker 3: and I think throughout the years, not necessarily like in

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Speaker 3: a bad way, but become because it has become more

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Speaker 3: of a hobby, more of an exercise. We talk about

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Speaker 3: with yoga, we talk about with meditation, that it became

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Speaker 3: more entertainment rather than seeing the root of what it was.

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Speaker 3: And I think she explores a lot of that in

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Speaker 3: her own childhood. Of course, like I'm going deeper than

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Speaker 3: what the book is actually saying, but she talks about

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Speaker 3: origins and her connections to her ancestry through dance through nature,

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Speaker 3: and that was kind of the intent of dance to

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Speaker 3: begin with. And we talk about that with like how

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Speaker 3: folk art and folk dancing and music came from the

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Speaker 3: pleas of you know, enslaved people bringing their culture and

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Speaker 3: trying to connect back to their culture which was stolen

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Speaker 3: from them. And again for many of the Indigenous people

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Speaker 3: was not only stolen, it was trying to be eradicated

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Speaker 3: or erased. And also they were like they made fun

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Speaker 3: of it. They made it into such a way that

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Speaker 3: even hearing the word pow wow, which is an amazing ceremony,

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Speaker 3: and you hear more about it and like it is sacred.

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Speaker 3: But because of the way white culture and white supremacy

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Speaker 3: as taking these words and like believes or ideals, they

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Speaker 3: have caused this almost like backlash and what it is

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Speaker 3: and a way of illegitimizing what it truly is. And

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Speaker 3: when we talk about cultural appropriation, why using that terms

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Speaker 3: are saying get together is is really offensive. And while

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Speaker 3: we have to pay attention to what this narrative does

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Speaker 3: because they are trying to destroy a culture which is

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Speaker 3: so deeply ingrained and so deeply a part and rich

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Speaker 3: part of their nature, and that they're returning to that

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Speaker 3: they are actually being praised for again like it's kind

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Speaker 3: of come back to fashion to a noting that this

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Speaker 3: is a beautiful ceremony that should be looked with reverence

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Speaker 3: and that should only be done by Native people with

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Speaker 3: those types of roots. But it is interesting because we

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Speaker 3: talk about classical it is kind of like it's pretty,

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Speaker 3: don't get me wrong. And there's also roots of that

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Speaker 3: in ancestral dancing for other formats, but it got whitewashed

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Speaker 3: and become a show and tell type of thing. I

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Speaker 3: guess is a way instead of seeing what dance could be.

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Speaker 3: And it is interesting, especially when you have whitewashed where

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Speaker 3: she was like learning and she's great, she's a great answer,

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Speaker 3: like she knows she's gotten awarded for all these different

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Speaker 3: types of solos and such, but having some of those

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Speaker 3: parts that she doesn't connect with it, how it does

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Speaker 3: seem difficult.

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Speaker 2: And I think that says a lot.

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Speaker 3: Again, this is going real deep into it, but that

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Speaker 3: when we talk about things like this, how beautiful important

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Speaker 3: it is, and why it needs to be noted to

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Speaker 3: young children, because I feel like that's when you really

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Speaker 3: feel the magic of it, when you connect you know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and you touched on a lot of stuff

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Speaker 1: that we're going to come back to, but yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I do I agree that when you're young. That's when

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Speaker 1: I was in dancing class and until I got too

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Speaker 1: self conscious about my body that it was.

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Speaker 2: I loved it.

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Speaker 1: It felt very freeing and I was like, undoubtedly I

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Speaker 1: was doing a much more classical type. But when you're

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Speaker 1: younger and it kind of feels like I get to

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Speaker 1: wear this and there's this music and I get to

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Speaker 1: move in this way. And it wasn't necessarily strict because

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Speaker 1: I was really young, so it was it did feel

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Speaker 1: pretty magical. I remember those moments of thinking, I'm so

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Speaker 1: excited to do this, So I do think, yeah, when

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Speaker 1: you're younger, not that you can't find it at any time,

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Speaker 1: but it is a special like it feels really like fun.

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Speaker 3: And also you get to do it with your friends

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Speaker 3: hopefully hopefully like you get to do with people who

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Speaker 3: feel that same way with you. So as a class,

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Speaker 3: you're doing these fun classes unless you know, things can

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Speaker 3: go awry often, but if you're truly enjoying it and

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Speaker 3: allow to enjoy it for what it is, I just

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Speaker 3: feel like a connection.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it does. It does.

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Speaker 1: And outside of the book, in an interview, Thundercloud said

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Speaker 1: one of the reasons that she loves dance is that

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Speaker 1: she would get all in her her mind and this

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Speaker 1: was a way of being present with her body. And

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Speaker 1: I think that that that just made so much sense

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Speaker 1: to me because that's how I feel when I go

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Speaker 1: hiking because I have to focus on every the next

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Speaker 1: step and the next step and the next step, and

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Speaker 1: it does help me get out.

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Speaker 2: Of my head, which can be difficult to do.

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Speaker 1: I won't why, but if you can do it, it's

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Speaker 1: really nice. And afterwards I often feel very refreshed, like

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Speaker 1: I just needed that moment of being present with my body. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think it's really important. It used to be so

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Speaker 1: good about stretching, but I've fallen off. The last time

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Speaker 1: I stretched and it was really nice. I was like, Yep,

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Speaker 1: there's a reason why I did this all the time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, mm hmmm.

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Speaker 1: She also talks about finding connection and communication through art

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Speaker 1: and preserving culture that way. That is, yeah, very very important.

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Speaker 1: But she's a big proponent of finding that communication because

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Speaker 1: she was shy. She talked about feeling very shy, which

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Speaker 1: she later kind of expounded on and said also I

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Speaker 1: was the only indigenous person. But we'll talk about that

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Speaker 1: more in a second, but at the time she was

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Speaker 1: interpreting it as shy and dance was a way that

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Speaker 1: she could communicate. So here's a quote. I could always

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Speaker 1: dance it out and feel better, which yeah, again, and

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Speaker 1: using dance as another language, which I really love how

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Speaker 1: she talks about that.

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Speaker 2: We used to do that in a.

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Speaker 1: Not by not the same level by any means, but

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Speaker 1: in college, I in a group that was just about

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Speaker 1: international communication, connecting with people might not speak your language,

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Speaker 1: and we did. We would make dances to communicate, which

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Speaker 1: some of them I still know.

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Speaker 2: And it was college. I will stick with you. You

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Speaker 2: think about some.

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Speaker 3: Of the routines that I did as a kid with

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Speaker 3: my friends who were in dance, and I wasn't with

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Speaker 3: a great number for footloose.

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Speaker 2: Oh I bet you did.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I did.

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Speaker 2: Anyway, I love that. I love it.

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Speaker 1: Uh. And then it kind of ends with this message,

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Speaker 1: I am beautiful thunder woman, and dance will always be

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Speaker 1: a part of me. I've heard really coming into her

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Speaker 1: own of this is who I am, and dance is

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Speaker 1: a part of it. And she talks about feeling the

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Speaker 1: history through it, and feeling ancestors through it, ancestors watching

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Speaker 1: over you and doing these dances that people before you

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Speaker 1: had done and preserving them and presenting them across the country,

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Speaker 1: which I love. And she also subscribes being gifted a

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Speaker 1: set of eagle wings and the importance of that because

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Speaker 1: eagles fly higher than any bird and they take your

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Speaker 1: messages up to the sky. And another thing she touches

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Speaker 1: on that I love is quote it felt wonderful to

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Speaker 1: see the changes of Mother Earth as she was traveling,

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Speaker 1: just seeing all of these different environments, locations and nature

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Speaker 1: being important in general, which we've discussed at length when

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Speaker 1: we talk about Indigenous women on this podcast, but it

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Speaker 1: is and appreciating that and protecting that as much as

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Speaker 1: you can, right, Yeah, they.

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Speaker 3: Like to that. Yeah, I did love also, And she

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Speaker 3: was talking and I think we're going to talk about

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Speaker 3: it in a second, about the fact that her brother

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Speaker 3: was so encouraging and I love that when you see

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Speaker 3: Indigenous dance and when you see the ceremonies, it's about

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Speaker 3: warriors and warriorhood and the matriarch and and seeing that

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Speaker 3: represented from both of them and how important it is

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Speaker 3: on both those notes. And like again when we talk

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Speaker 3: about mother Earth and the fact that they based their

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Speaker 3: their lineage on the matriarch, I think this also, This

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Speaker 3: dance also played a huge part in that conversation, and

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Speaker 3: we know that in general, their rituals have a lot

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Speaker 3: of that as a part of their forefront in their

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Speaker 3: storytelling too, So it is I love seeing that family

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Speaker 3: part as also like the separate parts of like that,

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Speaker 3: I'm like, that's really Yeah. She was like empowered and.

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Speaker 2: Ready to go. Yeah, I did love when her brother

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Speaker 2: came up turned and was like you got this and

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Speaker 2: hard and she did and.

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Speaker 1: She's So this brings us to identity, which is also

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Speaker 1: a huge theme in the book. As mentioned, she was

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Speaker 1: often the only indigenous woman and any school dance, whatever

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Speaker 1: it was, she says, sometimes I felt like an outsider.

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Speaker 1: In the book an interviews, she said like, no, I

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Speaker 1: want the house side, right, but and her kind of

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Speaker 1: interpreting that as I'm shy. And also yes, she didn't

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Speaker 1: correct people on the pronunciation of her name at first.

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Speaker 2: She later did.

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Speaker 1: The author this is not in the book, but the

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Speaker 1: author describes going on a high school field trip to

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Speaker 1: a reservation where the other students like you were kind

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Speaker 1: of talking about Samith that made fun of the dance

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Speaker 1: and song, and for her that was just such a

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Speaker 1: that they were laughing at this thing that was her

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Speaker 1: identity or culture, part of her whole life of it's

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Speaker 1: something she loved and her fellow students just laughing at it.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, she at the end of the book she

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Speaker 1: writes about how after her daughter was born, she would

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Speaker 1: correct people who mispronounced it, and so that's sort of

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Speaker 1: the trying to build that better.

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Speaker 2: World for her. But she has started to correct people

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Speaker 2: on her own name too, and she did in the book.

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Speaker 3: Ye M right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I find it interesting because when she talks about again

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Speaker 3: going from what she loved, learned in love with her

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Speaker 3: own cultural dances and ancestral dances, and then learning contemporary

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Speaker 3: dances and know realized she is also good at that,

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Speaker 3: but also realizing how different it was and I could

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Speaker 3: not imagine. And I think she kind of alludes to

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Speaker 3: that with that being like, I don't feel like I'm

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Speaker 3: a part of this classical was hard and understanding that

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Speaker 3: her dances are often invalidated by those types of schools

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Speaker 3: and competitions because they're very whitewash the man I keep

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Speaker 3: saying that term, but it's true in that it gets

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Speaker 3: taken into being like that's not a real dance, this

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Speaker 3: is dance type of conversation. And I'm wondering if that,

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Speaker 3: like hearing that, seeing that being on trips like that

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Speaker 3: where they invalidate that, like they would celebrate her championship

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Speaker 3: for ballet, but not for being warrior dancing like any

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Speaker 3: of those ways, and seeing how to figure out to

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Speaker 3: meld those two types of communities together. When she loved

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Speaker 3: dance in general, like she loved any form, and that's

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Speaker 3: true appreciation in that understanding, like community, like to love

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Speaker 3: dance is to love all dance, even if you're not

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Speaker 3: great at it, to know and learn the difficulty then

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Speaker 3: ciation of contemporary ballet, hip hop, all of these things,

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Speaker 3: and ancestral rights like doing indigenous dancing in loving that,

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Speaker 3: I think definitely as people go traveling the world as

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Speaker 3: she did, they did appreciate it more. But in general,

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Speaker 3: the popular, like the populace in general, does not. And

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Speaker 3: so her trying to figure those two things out while

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Speaker 3: being in a community that she loves that doesn't love

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Speaker 3: her or her world is an interesting aspect as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, because she does.

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Speaker 1: She does touch on that very briefly of the I

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Speaker 1: felt like I couldn't dance my indigenous dance right, and

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Speaker 1: that would never fly in this very white world.

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Speaker 2: And so.

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Speaker 1: I'm just like reading quotes from the author now, I'm

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Speaker 1: just really glad that she was able to find this

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Speaker 1: platform and find success. As always, we wish her case

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Speaker 1: wasn't an outlier, but I'm glad that she has held

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Speaker 1: on to that and still finds joy in that, and

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Speaker 1: it's now getting a lot of recognition for it.

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Speaker 2: And then yeah, she.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if she's I wouldn't say I know

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Speaker 1: if she's going to try to direct her daughter into

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Speaker 1: dancing or anything, but that she is trying to make

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Speaker 1: sure that her daughter knows about her culture and her

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Speaker 1: heritage and that people get her name correctly. And she

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Speaker 1: has this other quote I thought was really moving. I

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Speaker 1: transformed again when I was gifted a daughter of just

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Speaker 1: how moving that was for her. And she also has

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Speaker 1: this other quote, a language that still exists despite many

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Speaker 1: attempts to wipe it out forever, which we've discussed before. Yes,

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Speaker 1: Indigenous languages are are been under threat, purposeful attempts to

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Speaker 1: erase them. But she was saying like that, she would

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Speaker 1: think this when people at her school couldn't pronounce her name.

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Speaker 1: She was like, you know, this is a language that

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Speaker 1: still exists, right and.

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Speaker 2: No one knows it.

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Speaker 1: No one knows it outside of you know where I

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Speaker 1: come from. And again, that idea of preserving a culture

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Speaker 1: and a language that she's trying to do we're speaking

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Speaker 1: of when we're talking about representation. In twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 1: the Cooperative Children's Book Center reported only one percent of

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Speaker 1: American children's books were written by indigenous authors. So this

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Speaker 1: is a big deal that she has this book and

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Speaker 1: is telling this story, and children's books are important, like

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Speaker 1: as we said, when you're young, seeing those things matters. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: And she has another she has another quote. The author

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Speaker 1: does not in the book, but she was saying she

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Speaker 1: learned about a lot of her her culture's history after

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Speaker 1: school because she said, never was taught it, never got

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Speaker 1: the chance to learn it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, which is absurd, Like it feels as a

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Speaker 3: podcasting show that tries to bring attention to different people,

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Speaker 3: different activists who have done different things, including many Indigenous people,

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Speaker 3: trying to learn the history of what they have been

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Speaker 3: through or even like the things that exist today but

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Speaker 3: that are a recall of what was taken away from them.

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Speaker 3: It's been fascinating because it's like having to learn something

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Speaker 3: new but pretending like I already knew it, you know

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Speaker 3: what I mean, Like in conversations with any of the

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Speaker 3: Indigenous people or seeing what they've worked for trying to

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Speaker 3: fight for indigenous rights, fight for existence, just their tribal existence,

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Speaker 3: fight for their language, fighting for their foods, fighting for

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Speaker 3: like any of these conversations or like past names of

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Speaker 3: lands that were taken from them, it is like significantly

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Speaker 3: impactful to see them still call upon it, because once

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Speaker 3: they lose that, once it gets forgotten, it just is lost.

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Speaker 3: And I couldn't imagine a group of people losing their

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Speaker 3: entire way of being in their ancestry because of white

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Speaker 3: supremacy and the years of genocidal attempts against them for existing,

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Speaker 3: for being here, and having these types of representation, like

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Speaker 3: the fact that if she's saying that she wasn't taught

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Speaker 3: and it is her culture, how many more of us

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Speaker 3: have no clue of the many things that are fascinating

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Speaker 3: and it actually teaches us lessons today. Yeah, like that's

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Speaker 3: so important, And it's the more like we uncover, the

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Speaker 3: more we talk about, the more communities, the more groups

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Speaker 3: of people that we see and talk about, Like it's

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Speaker 3: almost shameful, Like I feel like I haven't done a job,

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Speaker 3: my job, even though I'm new to this job, and

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Speaker 3: even though we were never taught that we have to

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Speaker 3: seek it and especially as we are trying to stop

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Speaker 3: the bigger attempts, today's attempts, the current attempts to shut

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Speaker 3: down these types of information, this type of history today,

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Speaker 3: Like it's such a significant amount of information that we

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Speaker 3: don't have that is a loss to everyone.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, absolutely, And if you want to look up her,

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Speaker 1: I believe this interview was with Colores in partnership with PBS,

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Speaker 1: but she talked about that. She said, there was two

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Speaker 1: sentences in my textbook that was just basically about how

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Speaker 1: indigenous people attacked white people.

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Speaker 3: That's all literally like, oh, look, these white people help

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Speaker 3: the indigenous people, and then the indigenous people were mad

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Speaker 3: when we told me they had to move.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we're laughing because it's ridiculous and terrible.

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Speaker 3: It is like they downplay the atrocities as if it

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Speaker 3: was just history and that it didn't really affect too

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Speaker 3: many people.

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Speaker 1: It's fine, right, right, But I would recommend checking checking

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Speaker 1: out some of the interviews she's done and some of

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Speaker 1: the other work she's done, and just hear her. The

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Speaker 1: videos of her dancing very just beautiful in this book,

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Speaker 1: which is important and I'm glad kids have access to it.

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Speaker 2: Yes, well, listeners.

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Speaker 1: As always, we would love to know your thoughts. We

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Speaker 1: would love to hear your suggestions. You can email us

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00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:01,199
Speaker 1: at Hello at stuff Whenever Told You dot com. You

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00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:03,200
Speaker 1: can find us on Blue Sky at Momstaff podcast, or

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00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 1: on Instagram and TikTok at stuff We've Never Told You.

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00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:07,919
Speaker 1: We're also on YouTube. We have some new merchandise at

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00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: Common Bureau, and we have a book you can get

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00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:11,679
Speaker 1: wherever you get your books. Thanks z Always Too, our

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Speaker 1: super produced Christina, our executive produce, and your contributor Joey.

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Speaker 1: Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff Never

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Speaker 1: Told You production of My Heart Radio. For more podcast

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Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio, you can check out the heart

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