Alastair Lee Bitsóí - New World Coming: Frontline Voices on Pandemics, Uprisings, and Climate Crisis

FRONTLINE VOICES ON PANDEMICS, UPRISINGS, & CLIMATE CRISIS

EDITED BY
ALASTAIR LEE BITS & BROOKE LARSEN

TORREY HOUSE PRESS

Salt Lake City Torrey

First Torrey House Press Edition, November 2021

Copyright 2021 by Alastair Lee Bits and Brooke Larsen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means without the written consent of the publisher.

Published by Torrey House Press

Salt Lake City, Utah

www.torreyhouse.org

International Standard Book Number: 978-1-948814-53-9

E-Book ISBN: 978-1-948814-54-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021930607

Cover art by Mariella Mendoza

Cover design by Kathleen Metcalf

Interior design by Rachel Buck-Cockayne

Distributed to the trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution

Torrey House Press offices in Salt Lake City sit on the homelands of Ute, Goshute, Shoshone, and Paiute nations. Offices in Torrey are on the homelands of Southern Paiute, Ute, and Navajo nations.

For the rivers of the Southwest.

May this new world ease your flow.

Welcome from Alastair

I n mid-March 2020, I was told I had COVID-19. I was probably one of the first cases in Utah. Learning I had COVID-19 was alarming for many well understood and still unknown reasons, and even to this day, new variants emerge. Thank goodness for science and vaccinesIm vaxxed. On March 11, the World Health Organization had declared a global pandemic. America was soon in the throes of a lack of reliable tests to detect the coronavirus in humans, wishy-washy guidance from the Centers for Disease Control under the Trump administration, Utah Jazz COVID-19 diagnoses shutting down the NBA, and an earthquake on March 18 followed by hundreds of aftershocks. Then, in May, the tragic death of George Floyd inspired and re-energized racial justice uprisings and the Black Lives Matter movement, a global call to action to end police brutality toward Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. This was 2020, and then some.

Across Indigenous communities, the impacts of climate change, along with COVID-19, have resulted in the devastation and loss of our people. I knew more losses, and it still hurts. Our cultures, languages, and Indigenous knowledge systems, which could indeed help with solutions for the world, including the ongoing climate crisis, helped inform Indigenous leaders who directed communities to scale back travel and economic activity for the safety of all. It is often understood from Indigenous thinking that the coronavirus is an obvious indicator of the need for global change, including the dismantling of white supremacy and capitalism. This was clear as day in summer 2020. I had been walking to my home in downtown Salt Lake City during a mandatory curfew, an effort by public health officials to mitigate the viruss spread. The abandoned streets were eerie, like you see in a pandemic blockbuster on the theatre screen. But, it was also a beautiful moment to see living ecosystems displaced by concrete jungles reclaim their spaces. The impacts of the virus uprooted capitalism like the snap of a finger, revealing the need for greater change. Walking downtown that day made me realize how much harm humans have caused to Nihima Nahasdzaan, Mother Earth, and Yadilhxil Shita, Father Sky, and other non-human life.

The traumatic truths of 2020 forced me to dig deep and find pathways to help our global humanity. It took a while to get here after some hard truths like heartbreak, reconciliation, love, forgiveness, therapy, ceremony, and tons of internal healing. Some of this heartbreak happened when medical personnel had no idea how to consult me at two local health-care settings for COVID-19. Cloaked in their PPE, health-care workers stood away from me in the emergency room, as if I were something uranium. I knew I was sick, but because the virus was still new to Utah and tests were scarce, I didnt know for sure I had COVID-19. In those early stages of the pandemic, I felt the structural racism of health-care access. Even so, I did my best to advocate to get tested after doctors ruled out the common cold and flu. Through that experience, I wondered how COVID-19 would become an issue for BIPOC communities among Utahs majority white population. Fourteen days later, after many attempts for a test, I learned I was positive for COVID-19. It was a lot to process, but it helped me learn to accept what I had. I took solace in Din healing practices, and to this day I thank my family and healers and their cultural knowledge for the ongoing healing. The reciprocal love for Mother Earth showed me the power of her gifts of sage, pine, juniper, tobacco, and other medicinal herbs. Thank you, Holy People and Creator, for my breath.

Now that I feel pretty good and healed-up, I am working to address the effects of capitalism, racism, the patriarchy, and the exploitation of our landscurrent and ancestral Indigenous territories.

In June 2020, I was asked by Torrey House Press to be co-editor of this anthology with Brooke Larsen. It was mostly a shock because it was an unexpected writing opportunity. I was slowly coming out of four months of isolation and quarantine and met with Brooke and Kirsten Allen, publisher for Torrey House Press, to talk about the vision and contributors that would be part of this project at Salt Lake Citys Sugar House Park. I also questioned Brooke and Kirsten about the validity of the invitation to co-edit, only because of how diversity, equity, and inclusion are becoming trending words after the onset of the pandemic and uprisings. I did not want to be tokenized as a co-editor. But, it made sense to help direct