WEBVTT

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[SPEAKING MOJAVE]

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Just so you know, there's
no method to this madness.

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This is my set list, all
scribbled up and put together.

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So at our dinner, I
sat next to Barbara,

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and we had a conversation
about some of the roads she

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and her son had traveled
coming across the country.

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And those were also
roads I had traveled,

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because I live in
Fort Mojave, Arizona.

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Mojave Valley, Arizona.

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And so we had made some
of those same trips.

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And it just feels
very special tonight

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to know that I also share a
different path with her son

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and the path of
being a poet who's

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trying to find their voice
and their self as a writer.

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So I'm really glad to be here.

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Boyer, thank you so much
for making this possible.

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Tyler.

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Cybele.

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I love Cybele the name,
because I lived in Madrid

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for a little while.

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And just because I'm trying
to keep up with Eduardo

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and his cross, it's like--

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yeah, you know Madrid,
that place way far away.

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But when Real Madrid, when
they win, that's the plaza

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they go to.

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That's the fountain that they
go to and celebrate, is the--

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with, yeah, so, OK.

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So we're even now, I feel like.

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So I can--

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I'm going to go ahead
and start with--

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I mean, we've had a
lot of conversations.

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I've been here one evening.

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I came in last night.

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And we've talked
with some classes

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and some teachers of classes.

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And so, I'm going to try and
gear my reading a little bit

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towards some of the
questions the students had.

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And I know in one of
the high school classes,

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there were some students
who were also Native

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and who had different
type-- whether it's

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Yaqui or any type
of Indigenous blood.

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So I'm going to go
ahead and start--

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it's an oldie but
goodie, I guess.

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"Hand-Me-Down Halloween."

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"The year we moved off the
reservation, a white boy

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up the street gave me
a green trash bag fat

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with corduroys, bright-colored
shirts, and a two piece

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Tonto costume.

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Turquoise thunderbird
on the chest.

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Shirt and pants the color
of my grandmother's skin--

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reddish brown.

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My mother's skin--
brown-red skin.

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My mother's boyfriend laughed.

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Said, now, I was a fake Indian.

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Look at her now.

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Your Indin girl is a fake Indin.

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My first Halloween
off the reservation,

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white Jeremiah told
all his white friends

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that I was wearing
his old costume--

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a hand-me-down.

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I looked at my hands.

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All them whites laughed at me.

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Called me half-breed.

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Threw Tootsie Rolls
at the half-breed, me.

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Later, darker in the night at
white Jeremiah's front door,

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trick or treat, I made a good
little Indian, his father said.

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Now don't you make a
good little Indian?

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He gave me a Tootsie Roll.

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More night came darker, darker.

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Mothers gathered their
white kids from the dark.

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My dark mother
gathered empty cans

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while I waited to
gather my white kid.

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I waited to gather
white Jeremiah.

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He was the skeleton walking
past my house, a glowing skull

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and ribs.

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I ran and tackled his
white bones in the street.

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His candy spilled out like
a million pinto beans.

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Asphalt tore my
brown-red skin knees.

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I hit him harder and
harder, wider and harder.

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He cried for his mama.

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I put my fist-me-downs
again and again and down.

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He cried for that white.

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She came running.

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She swung me off him,
dug nails into my wrists,

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pulled me to my front door.

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Yelled at her white
kid to go wait at home.

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Go wait at home, Jeremiah.

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Mama will take care of this.

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She was ready to take care
of this, to pound on my door.

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But no trick or treat.

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My door was already open.

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And before that white could
speak or knock or put her hands

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down on my door, my mother
told her to take her hands off

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of me.

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Take your fucking
hands off my girl.

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My mother stepped or
fell toward that white.

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I don't remember
what happened next.

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I don't remember that white mama
leaving, but I know she did.

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My mother's
boyfriend said, well,

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Kimosabe, you
ruined your costume.

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Well, Kimosabe, you
fucked up your costume.

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My first Halloween off
the reservation, my mother

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said, maybe next year, you
can be a little Tinkerbell

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or something.

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Now go get that
white boy's candy.

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It's in the road."

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[LAUGHTER]

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I'm glad you guys stayed.

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I read that in Des Moines, Iowa,
and lost half of my audience.

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[LAUGHTER]

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They left very noisily as well.

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