This piece is-- this next piece is one that
has a very large history to it.
It's the history, of course, of the O'odham people.
Also the history of this country,
and particularly the southern part here, and, of course,
Arizona.
As O'odham people, this whole area, of course, Tucson, we--
its real name, of course, is S-cuk-Sǫn.
This whole area is O'odham land, going on down into what is,
of course, now Sonora, Mexico.
And our tribe is split by the border.
And some of us ended up what is now the Mexico side.
And the majority of the O'odham, of course,
are on the Arizona side or the US side.
Anyway, there's lots of different histories of families
and large groups of O'odham people
in that evolved in different ways because
of that separation, that physical separation, also
political separation of peoples.
And my family came into Arizona in the 1950s.
At least, my mother and father came in the 1950s.
Both of them are from Sonora, Mexico.
Our traditional home is in what is now Mexico.
And like many O'odham people, they
sort of moved around for economic reasons, finding jobs
and so forth.
And they ended up on the edges, on the edge of the reservation,
on the edge of a lot of things.
And so many of us, of course, were born at home.
And I was one of them.
We had a big family.
And as a result of that, I have no documentation
of my birth and all that that is often required.
Anyway, at one point--
in fact, in the last 10 years, I think--
I've had invitations to go-- to leave the country
or to go to other places in the world for different things,
especially the work on language and Indigenous languages,
Native American languages.
But of course, I cannot go.
Well, I guess I could go.
I just can't come back into the country.
But anyway, so one time--
well, actually, several times--
different people offered to help me.
The thing that I never took them up on their offer
is because it's one thing to help
me to get a birth certificate and a passport
or whatever was necessary.
But then what about the rest of the O'odham people who were
in the same position-- situation as--
that I was in?
So I never went through the whole process.
And then, of course, I would take my political stance
and say, I don't need a piece of paper, that sort of thing.
But anyway, one time, I did try, just to see what it took.
And I went downtown and talked to the woman
behind the glass plate window.
Eh, you know, she was a lifelong worker behind the glass window.
And so this piece has a lot of that dialogue.
It's real dialogue, too, between myself
and this woman behind the glass window.
And then, of course, it's my story
and the story of many O'odham people who were born at home
or, perhaps, born or came in from Mexico
but are O'odham people.
And it's not a question of whether they're US citizens
or not.
It's that they're O'odham, and this is our homeland.
And so this piece is called "Birth Witness" because that's
what I need in the end, is someone
who saw me being born here on this side, in the US side.
"My mother gave birth to me in an old wooden row
house in the cotton fields.
She remembers it was windy."
And actually, my birthday is this month, the windy month
of April-- excuse me, March.
"She remembers it was windy, around 1:00 in the afternoon.
The tin roof rattled, a piece uplifted from the wooden frame.
It quivered and flapped as she gave birth.
She knew it was March, a windy afternoon in the cotton
fields of Arizona.
She also used to say I was baptized standing up.
'It doesn't count,' the woman behind the glass window tells
me.
'If you were not baptized the same year you were born,
the baptismal certificate cannot be used to verify your birth.
You need affidavits,' she said.
'Your older siblings-- you have some, don't you?
They have to be old enough to have a memory of your birth.
Can they vouch for you?'
Who was there to witness my birth?
Who was there with my mother?
Was it my big sister?
Would my mother have let a teenager
watch her giving birth?
Was it my father?
I can imagine my father assisting her with her babies.
My aunts?
Who was there when I breathed my first breath,
took in those dry particles from the cotton fields?
Who knew then that I would need witnesses of my birth?
The stars were there in the sky.
The wind was there.
The sun was there.
The pollen of spring was floating
and sensed me being born.
They are silent witnesses.
They do not know of affidavits.
They simply know.
'You need records,' she said.
'Are there doctor's receipts from when you were a baby?
Didn't your parents have a family Bible, you know,
where births are recorded?
Were there letters?
Announcements of your birth?'
I don't bother to explain my parents are
illiterate in the English language.
What I really want to tell her is
they speak a language much too civil for writing.
It is a language useful for pulling memory
from the depths of the earth.
It is useful for praying with the earth and sky.
It is useful for singing songs that pull down the clouds.
It is useful for calling rain.
It is useful for speeches and incantations
that pull sickness from the minds and bodies of believers.
It is a language too civil for writing.
It is too civil for writing minor things like my birth.
This is what I really want to tell her.
But I don't.
Instead, I take the form she hands me,
and I begin to account for myself."
I still dig it up--