Kind of hard to ask questions about poetry, isn't it?
What year were you first in Japan?
Oh dear.
This is an achievement question.
No, it's a placement question.
Placement, yes.
10 years ago.
No.
1953.
That makes me 59 today.
And math is a creative act.
Or, arithmetic is even more creative.
Is that a demonstration of natural reason?
I'll bite.
Very good!
Yes it is.
That's evasive naturalism, yes.
I'm grateful the word achievement is not
on that recognition.
Thank you.
I'm joking about achievement.
Listen, you can not be recognized
for your achievement, too.
So I'm deeply honored, that's why
I can tease it with playing.
[INAUDIBLE] For your "Hiroshima Bugi"--
Yes.
Was this Peace Memorial Museum there in 1953,
or can you tell us more about what that was?
No, that wasn't until the 60s.
And of course, arriving in 1953, it's
just eight 8 years after the destruction of Hiroshima.
The city was rebuilding.
But the museum wasn't there.
I've been back many times.
And one of the times, I--
several visits to Hiroshima and to the museum.
And on one occasion which was sponsored by the State
Department, I was to meet the mayor of Hiroshima
at the museum.
And he would formally show me around.
And so I was on my best behavior politically.
But inside, I was deeply critical of how
the Japanese had turned their fascist military history
into a passive victimry.
As if the museum--
as if one day we're just going along reciting haiku poems
and suddenly, this disaster.
There wasn't a trace of their involvement in the war
or in their violent fascist occupation of Southeast Asia
before the Second World War.
That's deeply troubling to me.
It's a failure of education, it's
a failure of a government to acknowledge, even passively,
some reference to the Japanese military involvement
in the Asian war.
So I did mention politely that there
wasn't much reference to the war itself,
just these dioramas about how people suffered
from nuclear radiation.
And then a giant sort of architectural schematic model
you know of Hiroshima.
Hanging from the ceiling was this orange ball.
And of course, that's the explosion.
The mayor explained that they were making an addition
to the museum, larger than the original,
and that I should come by in three years and see.
So I did.
And that was the start of novel.
I went through the first part, which was pretty much the same.
Got to the second part--
quite a huge area.
And there's not much irony in the horrors of war,
but at this distance, there is some.
They had TV monitors, hundreds of them,
all around the ceiling.
And B-29 bombers were flying from one screen
to another dropping bombs forever.
I don't know if they shut it off at night or not.
That was my first thought.
Victimry.
There were two or three photographs
in a display case showing the Japanese occupation of China.
And that was it for the presentation
of their responsibility in the war.
At the end were two astounding architectural monuments--
at the end of this walk through this new edition.
One was a miniature version of the industrial building which
survived-- the one you see in pictures
that survived the atomic bomb.
And it did so because it was a steel structure.
And also, the bomb was almost above it.
So the force was down, not against, so it survived.
It's a World Heritage site actually,
and it's become symbolic.
But Japanese businessmen wanted to tear it down,
because it's really prime real estate on the river.
Make a great hotel.
Might call it the nuclear inn.
The Inn at ground zero, or something like that.
Sleep comfortably at the inn at ground zero.
So there was a strong movement to get rid of that.
That's why the UN and international groups acted
so quickly to get it established as a historical site,
so it couldn't be affected.
In preparation for what the businessmen thought
they could accomplish, they built this miniature dome
in the museum in a corner where kids can climb up and play
like a jungle gym--
remains of the nuclear explosion.
Pretty weird miniaturization.
Pretty weird.
OK, there's some irony there.
Maybe another 50 years before I can play that comfortably.
Then at the end is this huge oval shaped pillar,
maybe two stories.
And on it are reduced metal plates,
where letters from distinguished heads of state and political
leaders around the world have written
to the mayor of Hiroshima pleading for peace
and disarmament and that sort of thing.
And I was just in awe.
These were metal plates made from the letters
and they were slightly reduced so that they were like bricks.
You know, everybody-- kings, queens, Bill Clinton, Chirac,
and Mitterrand
Anyway, all these letters.
I'm looking here and I'm just thinking, my goodness.
And I'm in awe for--
it seemed like 10 minutes as I walked
around reading all these names.
And it seemed to me though, as I read the letters, that they
had the same scriptwriter.
It was all peace, we have to live
in the world as brothers and sisters, and disarmament.
And then I went around and re-read some of them.
And I realized that some of the people sending these letters
were in the nuclear arms business.
This was a pillar of hypocrisy.
That's when the novel started.
So I backed up and looked at that pillar
and thought, how could I destroy that in fiction?
Curious, especially in light of the topic of poetics
in politics about the contributions
you made to the crafting the White Earth Nation.
Yes.
The extent to which you found continuities
and discontinuities between your work
as a poet, a novelist, and a cultural theorist,
and the work you were doing in the crafting of that document?
Boy.
I know, I thought about that myself.
This was uninvited.
This was not on my mind.
I mean, who thinks about writing a Constitution?
Not even people who wrote them.
Because you don't-- this comes out of cultural, political,
social situations.
Sometimes revolutions, sometimes reformation, sometimes
conquest, Japan.
And this was different.
This was to create an independence
by separating from the federal Constitution that
had been established in 1936.
And I was happy to be a delegate.
One of 40 sworn delegates.
And the first four weekend conventions--
starting first in 2007, ending in 2009
with the ratification the last of the four.
They were weekend meetings and meals
provided and was held in the casino
hotel on the reservation.
Surely a pleasurable irony is that there
was a certain incentive to come to the conventions.
Because it was a free room and a little bit of gambling
after our discussions.
So the first convention was absolutely inspiring.
I felt I had just experienced an extraordinary gift,
late in my life.
It was so moving.
We all said things about the need for it.
I was just-- absolutely inspiring, I was just in awe.
The second convention however, got
turned around by blood quantums and family descent.
And there was no agreement at all
and I was convinced it was wrecked.
I couldn't imagine how this could survive.
Because you can't just vote a simple majority to quiet
the blood quantum group of people.
You couldn't do it, it had to be reconciled in some other way
than a majority vote of delegates.
So I just didn't see that happening.
Third convention was pretty productive.
Good issues, everybody's avoiding blood quantum
and definitions of citizenship.
Right?
Like it's going to go away.
And it didn't go away but I wrote two paragraphs that
accommodated both groups without using
the word blood or quantum.
And it was ratified unanimously, so it worked.
I was asked to do it and I said no.
They went to several other people
and they said no more forcefully than I did, apparently.
And it came back to me and I couldn't find a way to say no.
I was being called upon.
I think partly because of age and experience,
partly that maybe somebody who's a teacher can work this out.
Maybe I had more knowledge to do this kind of work
and then of course, being a writer.
My novels are hardly a preparation
for writing "The White Earth Constitution",
except an ironic one.
And I don't mind telling you that the Constitution
is unlike any in the world.
It has two words that you'll never see in a constitution.
One is survivants, another is irony.
And also a concept of continental liberty.
That's in the preamble.
Natives had a continental liberty,
extensive trading networks throughout the hemisphere.
Not North America, the entire hemisphere.
This was a cosmopolitan group of cultures
that demonstrated by reciprocity and a few wars here and there.
Continental liberty.
Which we haven't realized since colonial occupation.
So there it was and it was ratified.
There was some contention over a couple of points.
And they were good ones.
I had written that the Chief Justice of the White Earth
Court, as it's provided for in the Constitution,
would be an elected position, of course.
But when I was reviewing it with the current justice,
she said, no, no.
It has to be appointed.
If I had to run an election, given the decisions I make
on the reservation, no Chief Justice
will ever serve more than one term.
So I said, Yeah.
OK, that's convincing.
So changed it to appointed.
And when I read it out, there was huge opposition
for all the right reasons.
And I said, you're absolutely right.
Let's take a vote on it.
You elected.
Not going to have some cronyism dispensing justice.
It's a complicated issue, isn't it?
It's really complicated because, if you
have to run for positions of justice
and your decisions are unfavorable
and it's a small community, it's difficult, very difficult.
That was huge.
Not so huge it would have wrecked the Constitution,
but it was pretty vociferous.
So I don't know.
It was complicated trying to find a form for a Constitution.
And I ended up with pretty straightforward chapters
and articles.
And like the Japanese Constitution,
this Constitution builds into the Constitution
all of the rights.
They're not separate as a bill of rights, the same as the US
Constitution.
You want to hear a little bit more about this?
I think it's interesting, I compared--
for a lecture I did last week in New York-- the delegates
to the United States Constitution and the delegates
to the White Earth Constitution.
40 White Earth.
55-- but only 39 voted in the US Constitution.
White Earth Constitution was--
more than half were senior, meaning over 65.
And as it turned out, I was the real achiever.
And the youngest of the delegates
was a director of a youth program, she was in her 20s.
Most people other than the seniors were 50s or older.
The breakdown was about half of the 40 delegates
had taken some college courses.
And that would be different than say,
20 years earlier because of the community college
and also because nearby colleges were offering courses.
And of the half that had taken courses, about six of them
had degrees.
Two of the delegates were college teachers, I was one.
One musician, one retired fireman,
two people worked in Head Start, one person
had been a previous elected delegate to the legislature--
the council, things like that.
OK, US Constitution.
More than 30 of the 39 delegates that voted had legal experience
or were practicing lawyers, like today.
Six were plantation slavers, about a dozen were merchants,
several were in speculative investments and land.
In other words, it was an early corporate profile.
Don't misunderstand, I'm not faulting this.
That's what had to happen, because the leaders
of these communities were of course,
involved in building economic systems and communities.
Except for the plantation slavers.
And so it's not fully a negative, critique of that,
it's an interpretation of the time and purposes and interests
of people who had the will and knowledge and dedication
to create a Constitution from the Articles of Confederation
of the 13 states, former colonies.
And so it was a pretty orderly process.
The one big argument was over the Bill of Rights.
James Madison was in the Federalist Papers--
was opposed to a specific statement of rights because
he thought--
he referred to it as a parchment barrier, you write something
and that's going to persuade somebody.
So he said he wasn't going to persuade anybody of anything.
What we need are broad statements of rights, not
specific statements.
Because it'll suggest later, somebody
will figure out something was left out.
Therefore it's not a right of the people.
But it was Jefferson that persuaded
him to go with the Bill of Rights
because of the complexity of the 13 former colonies,
now 13 states.
And there was a lot of wrangling.
And there had to be some early and immediate recognition
of individual rights.
But the White Earth Constitution just
builds that into all the chapters of governance
and citizenship and so on.
Artists are protected, and writers for their irony.
You can do some very good political work with irony,
but you could probably also get thrown out.
What was your gender breakdown?
Yes.
US, men.
100%, right.
Totally, totally.
About 2/3 women.
Four of us were honorably discharged veterans, men.
But about 2/3 women.
I was concerned at first, because teaching college,
writing books and everything, I'm
going to come back and be a hotshot?
So I was trying to duck any potential teasing.
So I was very quiet.
And at the first lunch--
we didn't introduce ourselves until after some discussion
and then just breaking for lunch.
So it turns out that of the 40 delegates, six were relatives,
four were former students.
And then we went to lunch and while I
was filling up my plate feeling, I'd been here all along.
I don't have to worry about being hesitant now.
And because they're already teasing me, because they
remembered me as a teacher.
And I said, what kind of grade did I give you?
There's still time to change it, you know.
It was good.
There was a lot of fun.
But here was the greatest source of equalization and humor.
It was just wonderful.
And it was at the table--
frankly, everybody is around the table scooping up food.
And this woman who was not a delegate--
younger than I am--
I think widowed, I'd learned that later, beautifully
dressed.
So she had moved back from somewhere at retirement,
I think.
And in a big voice she comes up to me and she says,
Vizenor, if you ain't tooken, I'm looking.
And everybody laughed, it was just perfect.
So I said after the laughter subsided, I'm tooken
but if I weren't, I'd be looking.
You were talking about chance.
You also mentioned god-sends.
So I was wondering what chance means to you in your life
and how you understand it to work in life.
Well I think I was conceived by chance,
I certainly wasn't planned.
I don't think anybody could plan me.
And I'm guessing half of the United States population
was conceived in the backseat of a car.
So that's a kind of chance history of American family
development.
And in my own life experience and things I've done,
it's coincidence.
I take up the issue of a capital punishment case in South Dakota
and spend a year researching and writing about Thomas Whitehawk
and did save his life.
Not anything I wrote however, persuaded anyone
in law or the court.
But my booklet I wrote and was distributed
all over the world, free--
caused so much damage to the reputation of South Dakota that
come the fall hunting season, nobody was hunting there.
The governor held a press conference and said,
I stand by capital punishment and this Thomas Whitehawk
should die.
But our state is suffering economically from this issue
and I'm going to commute his sentence.
Amazing.
Well that work led to an offer from the Minneapolis Tribune
to be a staff writer.
That was pure chance, teaching was pure chance,
meeting people is chance.
It's chance, it's a wonderful coincidence.
I'm not a monotheist, I never have been.
I see multiple sources of inspiration including nature.
I don't relate very well to central authority.
So I have more opportunities for chance.
Pretty subtle, I have to congratulate myself on that.
It snuck up on me there, that comment was a chance.
Am I doing all right?
Does that work?
Thank you, yeah.
OK.
It was the backseat of a car that I think does it.
Understanding what you understand now
and how you think now about the importance of language,
what would you say to yourself as an 18-year-old
going into World War two?
Oh, I didn't go to World War Two, I'm not that old.
Sorry.
Thank you, though.
Because that's a real achievement.
It was Korea, it was the end of Korea.
Wrong war, but going in to war knowing
that there's a lot of propaganda that's frequently put out
about who's fighting who and why, what would you
say to yourself moving--
as if you could give yourself some advice
as a young man going into that?
Get your name at the bottom of the alphabet.
And I say that because I didn't go--
our troop ship was going to Incheon, Korea
and little did we know that it was only three months
to the end of the armistice.
That wasn't known, so I can't say I was scared or anything.
Listen I spent 16 weeks in just fantastic military training
learning how to kill people.
It's wonderful.
I know you think, that's all right-- it is.
Eighteen years old, I'm firing all these fantastic things,
throwing hand grenades, wearing gas masks,
doing all that exciting shit for an 18-year-old.
Where can I find that?
Frankly, every 18-year-old I know
would like to have an adventure like that.
The hard part was if I ever had to employ it.
But I wasn't scared.
I was too young to be scared, I'm sure.
I don't know.
I do know from research that young people who
come into combat use up a lot of ammunition.
This is how they discovered this.
You couldn't figure out why there's
so much, because the fatalities were nothing.
They were shooting to miss.
They were shooting over their heads.
But as soon as a friend is killed then
you're radically converted.
But I don't know how I would have responded
and it was by pure chance that I ended up in Japan.
The hospital ship was evacuating thousands of Americans
from Korea.
And it was a shallow harbor, only one ship at a time.
So we had to dock in Yokohama.
Ran out of supplies, so they put us ashore.
And then every day, twice a day, they
have a full roll call of 3,500 GIs.
And they take about 150 in the morning and in the afternoon
and fly them to the front lines.
By the time they get to the middle of the Ts, they stopped.
I guess they had enough.
So they took half of T to the end of the alphabet,
put us on a train to northern Japan
to train in a unit that had been decimated
and was going to go back.
So I served in a battalion of soldiers that were
at the bottom of the alphabet.
It's the first time I've ever been at the top of a roll call.
And I missed it a lot, because you can daydream through Baker,
Colfax, Davidson.
And suddenly it's Anderson, Baker, Vizenor.
Or Thomas, Vizenor.
And also, at the bottom of the alphabet
are double and triple diphthong cultural names
from Eastern Europe.
So it was a really interesting group of people.
Chance.
I didn't answer your question, but I was evasive.
Thank you very much.
You've been wonderful.
Thank you very much.
[INAUDIBLE]