Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) Awareness Month

In Bitterroot Susan Devan Harness traces her journey to understand the complexities and struggles of being an American Indian child adopted by a white couple and living in the rural American West. When Harness was fifteen years old, she questioned her adoptive father about her "real" parents. He replied that they had died in a car accident not long after she was born--except they hadn't, as Harness would learn in a conversation with a social worker a few years later.  Harness's search for answers revolved around her need to ascertain why she was the target of racist remarks and why she seemed always to be on the outside looking in. New questions followed her through college and into her twenties when she started her own family. Meeting her biological family in her early thirties generated even more questions. In her forties Harness decided to get serious about finding answers when, conducting oral histories, she talked with other transracial adoptees. In her fifties she realized that the concept of "home" she had attributed to the reservation existed only in her imagination. Making sense of her family, the American Indian history of assimilation, and the very real--but culturally constructed--concept of race helped Harness answer the often puzzling questions of stereotypes, a sense of nonbelonging, the meaning of family, and the importance of forgiveness and self-acceptance. In the process Bitterroot also provides a deep and rich context in which to experience life.

In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo, one of our leading Native American voices, details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, the end place of the Trail of Tears, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by finding shelter in her imagination, a deep spiritual life, and connection with the natural world. She attended an Indian arts boarding school, where she nourished an appreciation for painting, music, and poetry; gave birth while still a teenager; and struggled on her own as a single mother, eventually finding her poetic voice. Narrating the complexities of betrayal and love, Crazy Brave is a memoir about family and the breaking apart necessary in finding a voice. Harjo's tale of a hardscrabble youth, young adulthood, and transformation into an award-winning poet and musician is haunting, unique, and visionary.

This is the powerful autobiography of Mary Brave Bird, who grew up in the misery of a South Dakota reservation. Rebelling against the violence and hopelessness of reservation life, she joined the tribal pride movement in an effort to bring about much-needed changes.

In this follow-up to her acclaimed memoir Lakota Woman, the bestselling author shares "a grim yet gripping account" of Native American life (The Boston Globe).   In this stirring sequel to the now-classic Lakota Woman, Mary Brave Bird continues the chronicle of her life with the same grit, passion, and piercing insight. It is a tale of ancient glory and present anguish, of courage and despair, of magic and mystery, and, above all, of the survival of both body and mind.   Having returned home from Wounded Knee in 1973 and gotten married to American Indian movement leader Leonard Crow Dog, Mary became a mother who had hope of a better life. But, as she says, "Trouble always finds me." With brutal frankness she bares her innermost thoughts, recounting the dark as well as the bright moments in her tumultuous life. She talks about the stark truths of being a Native American living in a white-dominated society as well as her experience of being a mother, a woman, and, rarest of all, a Sioux feminist. Filled with contrasts, courage, and endurance, Ohitika Woman is a powerful testament to Mary's will and spirit.