In this essay for The New Territory magazine, I write about a moment I tried to gain my bearings in a new place by connecting to the author and activist, Zitkála-Šá:
“I was a Midwest transplant, born and raised on the East Coast. Before I left home, friends joked about flatland and cornfields and voiced concerns about my entering what they perceived to be a region of overwhelming whiteness. Culture shock, however, was nothing new to me. As the first in my immigrant family to attend college, I knew what it meant to feel unmoored, to walk into a room where no one resembled you…”
Read the rest of this essay, part of The New Territory magazine’s Literary Landscapes series, here: https://newterritorymag.com/literary-landscapes/zitkala-sa-richmond-indiana/
I provide more details on Zitkála-Šá’s speech, “Side by Side,” in this thread: https://twitter.com/DrMLovesLit/status/1280553203432599552
Contact me if you wish to see the entire transcript of the speech itself.
To read more of my other writing, go to my Research page.
