I appreciate the way that you write about your experience trying to write based on fact, and based on the experiences of others. I do feel that to discuss the farmer without any tribal input or context on the issues of water scarcity can quickly become problematic--tribal members have been asked to comment, contribute, collaborate for centuries, only to be exploited and marginalized. It takes a long-term commitment with communities and so often journalism doesn't allow for that type of time and work--in which case it leaves an entire story of experience and history absent. The ancestors of the farmers' tribal classmates were definitely there before the farmer's ancestors. It's stolen land, even when settlers call it home for a few generations. It's a deep time that cannot be approximated with those who came to 'improve' the land in the last century. There's also the history and facts of the need to allocate water--a term so clinical and yet so telling of a region where farming can't be supported otherwise, where water has always been important and scarce--but in modern times, the fish sacred to the Tribes can no longer thrive in the rivers they originated in due to the water allocations to settlers that began long ago. How do we work to get these histories visible and speak and write towards justice, and not continue to report on those who are part of the hegemonic culture comfortable with publicity, interviews, journalism? I'd be curious about your thoughts having visited and wrestled with the questions you are thinking through. With gratitude for your work.
Thanks so much for this post. I often write about the community I live in for national pubs and it's taken me a long time to feel like I could do as much reporting as I could from here, such a stratified town as far as neighborhoods and socioeconomics go, and just trust that the facts and the voices of people on all sides of an issue would tell the story if I did the footwork and then let is unfold as I reported it. But I've gotten it wrong, nonetheless, and learned to do better. That has made me a better reporter.
I appreciate the way that you write about your experience trying to write based on fact, and based on the experiences of others. I do feel that to discuss the farmer without any tribal input or context on the issues of water scarcity can quickly become problematic--tribal members have been asked to comment, contribute, collaborate for centuries, only to be exploited and marginalized. It takes a long-term commitment with communities and so often journalism doesn't allow for that type of time and work--in which case it leaves an entire story of experience and history absent. The ancestors of the farmers' tribal classmates were definitely there before the farmer's ancestors. It's stolen land, even when settlers call it home for a few generations. It's a deep time that cannot be approximated with those who came to 'improve' the land in the last century. There's also the history and facts of the need to allocate water--a term so clinical and yet so telling of a region where farming can't be supported otherwise, where water has always been important and scarce--but in modern times, the fish sacred to the Tribes can no longer thrive in the rivers they originated in due to the water allocations to settlers that began long ago. How do we work to get these histories visible and speak and write towards justice, and not continue to report on those who are part of the hegemonic culture comfortable with publicity, interviews, journalism? I'd be curious about your thoughts having visited and wrestled with the questions you are thinking through. With gratitude for your work.
Thanks so much for this post. I often write about the community I live in for national pubs and it's taken me a long time to feel like I could do as much reporting as I could from here, such a stratified town as far as neighborhoods and socioeconomics go, and just trust that the facts and the voices of people on all sides of an issue would tell the story if I did the footwork and then let is unfold as I reported it. But I've gotten it wrong, nonetheless, and learned to do better. That has made me a better reporter.