DANIELLE SHANDIIN EMERSON (Diné) Growing up, my father used to read car manuals to me. In the kitchen, he’d sit me on his lap and go over engine maintenance instructions. I’d watch as his calloused fingers flipped through yellowed pages — or so I’m told. I don’t remember him ever reading me car manuals, but throughout my life, especially once I developed a deep, early love for reading and writing, he’d tell people, “I used to read Danielle car manuals when she was little.” The more he said it, the more I believed it. Even now, sometimes I use it in icebreakers. When I think of storytelling, I think about my grandmother, my father, and my uncle. They all did artwork. My father and grandmother sculpted with clay, while my uncle painted. I was amazed by all the stories they told through their artwork. As a Diné family, storytelling has always been at the heart of our being. During the winter, my siblings and I gathered around a cast-iron stove, soaking in the fire’s warmth and our grandmother’s words. We were told stories about the animals, the seasons, the Díyin Diné’é (Holy People), their early lives, and their time out chasing cattle. Through my maternal grandparents, I was told stories about the earth, about farming and caring for plants, about the animals during the winter, and about the constellations — my cheii (maternal grandfather) used to tell us, “When Dilyéhé (the Seven Sisters, but more commonly known as the Pleiades) is in the sky, that’s when you start planting.” As I got older, my father began to rely on me and my love for written words. I edited his resume. I deciphered tricky government documents. I double-triple-quadruple- checked his spelling while he filled out paper job applications. And somewhere down the line, I started writing my own creative pieces. In third grade, my teacher made me stand at the front of the class and read a short story I wrote about a fox who didn’t know spring. I remember she called it cute. I think she kept the book. Elementary-school Danielle was so flattered that she didn’t hesitate to give her story away. I regret not keeping it, not hugging it closer to my chest. I write to strengthen my voice. I write about what I desperately needed to talk about as a child. I write to heal, or to reach something close to healing. I write to feel closer to home and my culture. In undergrad, I realized why I write: If I can help those who feel the
same way as me — lost and silenced by trauma or by family or longing for home, familiarity, and understanding — then maybe one day, we’ll all be in a better place. This feeling of wanting to be in a better place, of reaching something close to healing and writing about what needs to be said, is stitched at my core. My father read car manuals to me because I didn’t have access to literature written by Native and Indigenous women. It’s important to me, as a Diné woman, that Native and Indigenous voices are uplifted. I’d love to contribute to a growing storm of published Native and Indigenous writing — to tell the stories I’ve been wanting to write for months, if not years. I want to craft the types of stories that reach both beyond and within my past, my home, my culture, my loved ones, and the car manuals supposedly read to me as a child. This is why I’m a proud fiction writer, poet, and playwright. Ahe’hee’. Regions, these subjects are my friends and relatives. Together we stage photographs to tell stories that we feel (together) are important and give back to our Native community. My photographs explore our collective Native histories, and the ways in which our indigeneity expresses itself in modern times. I firmly believe Native peoples are as Indigenous today as we were prior to the advent of colonialism.
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