[smith] tommy orange, welcome. [tommy orange] thank you for having me. [smith] thank you very much for being here. Wanna talk all about the book and talk all about you, but i wanna talk about the title of the book first. So i didnt actually get the reference until after that this is Gertrude Stein. [orange] mmhmm. [smith] right . Like you, an oaklander. Is that the right way to say it . Oaklandite . [orange] oaklander. [smith] oaklander. [orange] yeah. [smith] so Gertrude Stein famously said of oakland, theresere there. And this is your response, this is your rebuttal of Gertrude Stein. [orange] and its also, i wouldnt put so much of the weight on Gertrude Stein as more on people who have sort of misused that quote. Because she was just talking about her childhood home. [smith] very specifi bec [orange] and itt talking abo was developed over. E. So in her everybodys autobiography, somebody asks her, why dont you write about oakland . There is no there there. Shes just talking about her experience. And so peove used it to say oakland has no character. And thats more a reflection on what people think of oakland or are trying to make oakland into an what her thoughts were. [smith] it may be as much a rebuttal of those people than of her. [orange] yeah. [smith] right. And oakland, as well come to in a second, is a character in this book. This book struck me, so i thought two thgs about this book. Its a portrait of america that we dont see and its a portrait of americans we dont see. There is not, as far as it goes, a lot of native American Literature or native american storytelling about the native American Community in this country. In novel form. Right . [orange] yeah, and, you know, specifically, whvie native people are in cities. This follows a dozen characters, in this book, and it really is about the lives of namericans in an urban environment, sort of detached from what you wou think of as the traditional environment in which these stories would be told. [orange] yeah. So, in the 1950s and 60s, there was relocation. So the u. S. Government was encouraging people to move from reservations to major cities, and th happened. And people came for lots of differe reasons. But when they came, even though it was sort of, the idea was that people would assimilate aninessentially disappeaities, and the culte and language would be sort of the step of era, rt but Indian Centers s up all over in every major city and all these different tribes from all over the country would come together and form community. Those people had families, and so theres generations of people that have this background of, you know, having grandmothers that were born and raised in the city or having mothers that did. [smith] Indian Culture, though, despite this, has persisted. Right . Inditure is still a thing. [orange] yeah. [smitih] right . And in fact theres a very key, i think it was a key scene in this book, where theres a poww is that Indian Culture persists regardless of circumstance, regardless of setting, regardle you know, is it old times, contemporary times, there is still something ve vibrant about this culture that you write about. And in your own life it continues to be a significant defining aspect. [orange] yeah, i mean it means a lot of different things. Something that weve suffered from is the idea that theres one way toe indian, and often that means its historicalfrom or its tied to some specific tradition. And it just means, theres over 575 tribes, all with distinct languages and histories and ways of indian. So this was one, this was just one aspect of native culture and American Life that ive never seen in books or in media. So i very much wanted to write into that lack. [smith] you are the child of a native ther and a white mo you selfdescribe or selfidentify, ough, as native american. Thats your own, and i mean that from the perspecve of your art. You are a native american novelist. You view that identity as central to your art and to your place as an artist. [orange] well, you know,i wn before i was an artist. I grew up with my dad, very much knowing that im native. [smith] and youd go back to his, go back to oklahoma with him, right . [orange] yeah. And it was just part of what i was. I knew i was sort e , you know, i was tho things. Im biracial. But there was reallynothin. [smith] well, the fact is you point out in the book, youre as indian as obama is africanamerican. [orange] but there is no cultural side on the white side and there is on the native side. You know, my mom fell for my dad in a teepee in northern w mexico in the 70s. She was sort of a wandering hippie from oakland moand he was practicing ce in northern new mexico. So my identity has never been anything other than i know im native, and my dad always made sure that we knew that and were proud of it. So im automatically a native author because that, you know, you can only be an author without any qualifying thing before it if youre white. Youre just an author. Otherwise you put the thing before. [smith] its a little ridiculous that it has to be qualified. An author is an author is an author. Although clearly, your own experience and your own identity is on every page in every paragraph of this book. Youve chosen to tell your story, this story, as opposed to me other story. [orange] yeah. [smith] i mean its the oldest thing in the world, tell your story, . [orae] and i think, you know, i think again, its a privilege of, specifically, white male authors to just tell any story, and if the just Start Talking about a protagonist and they have that guy go rob a bank and whatever, he survives most of the mountains and never brings up anything about his background. He has the privilege of not having to write anything in. And e e audience, because we been reading white male authors for so long, will asomatically assume hite and male. [smith] right. [orange] but if youre writing from your experience and, you know, i would never write a default person that didnt include my personal details. So its, yt of have to write against something thats been the default. You have to actively resist, otherwise youre sort of erased on the page. [smith] well, you become part of the problem at that point. But you know, in the case of white male authors, say, who clearly have dominated the landscape of letters for a long time, there are plenty of people who they read growing up in whom they see themselves, now or one day. But if youre a native author, there have not been a lot of native authors for you k to as mentors, role models, or to get a sense of how to do this. So who did yd growing up . What shaped and formed your thinking about your own art . [orange] i didnt read growing up. I wasnt a good student. I was into playing sports. I sort of actively resisted school. And i became a musician when i was 18 and then i went to school for sound engineering, and i learned a lot of analog recording. This was right before the digital age ok over. [smith] good career choice. [orange] yh. [smith] right. [orange] pretty much right after i graduated, my skills were obsolete, and i got a job at a used bookstore and thats when i fell in love with reading, and what i was reading then was not based on a teachers curriculum or anybody telling me what to read. I ended up reading a lot in translation and just a lot of scure stuff, and just followed my own instincts. And so [smith] your voice as an artist came from the ence that you had discovering other peoples voices in these books. [orange]eah, exactly. I didnt end up reading a lot of native writers until i got into my mfa program at the ins of American Indian art. [smith] is there something about native writers that is particular, in your mind . Would you or would we, as nonnative readers, say, be ablee in native writing something that would call it out . Range] no more than black writing would include ack experience or chinese writing would include chinese experience. s only categorized a certain way because its different than what the dominant [smith] characters, story, setting. [orange] yeah. Its great writing. The settings might be different d the characters lives might be different. What literature can do and what novelcan do that i love is that, nmatter w, you can live through an experience and come to understand a story erd understand a people be no matter what people that might be. [smith] and if you create amazing characters, i mean i love orville redfeather, there are a lot of characters in this book, dolike i said about n we follow, im partial to orville redfeather, but if you encounter various characters, you can find aspects of yourself in them regardless of who these characters are. And i thgrk thats one of tht things about, these are memorable characters all in this book. Its a very vivid picture of life today. Is it the book that you set out to write i wondered about that. I wondered, because this book is also di not really told in a tonal. A to z linear narrative. In which the story is presented. It makes it actually a lot more interesting. It feels like a very modern book in that sense. Is this what you intended . [orange] it is. Yo, there were some craft choices that i knew before i knew what story i was gonna tell. I knew i wanted a prologue, cause i like the way at functions in a novel. You can kindf experiment with a prologue before you start the chapters and the story. I e ew that i wanted a whnch of povs of a whole bunch of different characters and have, figuring out while you read how their lives rsect and how that also, you know, how it relates to the arc of the whole story. These are just craft decisions. [smith] but i love this to crafty, processy stuff. Ory. I love this. Because it really, thesee verys that ultimately are crucial to the success of the book. [orange] yeah, so, the idea, the idea came to me in a sinace moment for what thal book would be. I had just found out i was gonna be a father and i was driving with my wife down to l. A. [smith] well, i know you have a son named felix whos seven now . Range] correct. [smith] so were timing this perfectly. So its like, eight years ago . [orange] yeah, hes about the sa age as the book. cause i thought of the idea before i started writininto it. And i didnt write into it for a year cause i was busy becoming a father for the first time. [smith] preparing. Yeah, yeah yeah. [o but the idea just dropped into my head to have all these lives converge at a powwow at the oakland coliseum. Juat was the basic premise, and i, you know, i spent the next six years after thting into it. Or, you know, i didnt write for that first year, but after that, after waiting for a year, actual, you know, i really started waking up at five in the morning and id write after he went to sleep and i was working full time, so, i really went hard at it at first. I cant really expt in exactly how i madel work, but over six years, you know, you just keep going at the same. [smith] yeah. Oakland. So weve talout oakland a couple times, mentioned that oakland is the setting of this book, that theres a pivotal scene at the oakla coliseum, but really, oakland is all over this, oakland is a character in this book. Why is oakland such an interesting place for you . I was trying to think, as i was reading this book, aboueaother works of art thatre oakland. And i thought Fruitvale Station. Right . The film from a couple years ago. And then i kinda drew a blank after that. Am i not remembering something . [orange] well, theres two that you should watch where it represents oailand, theyre terrific. Its blindspotting and sorry to bother you. They just came out this year. [smith] oh, sorbother you oh, thats right sorry to bother you. I did see sorry to bother you, i did not see blindspotting you know, i didnt think about sorry to bother you as an oakland film where you, you know, you cant help but understand that Fruitvale Station is an oakland film. So o as a character, talk about that. [orange] for me, its home, and you know, i love it because its where i grew up and its what i know. You know, i cant, almost cant walk anywhere in oakland or drive around anywhere without it connecting to some memory, thats kind of what home is is, you know, where you spend the most time and where yoories are. But i was writing into the lack, again, you know, i didnt see any stories about natives in cities and i didnt see very many stories or novels specifically about oakland. So i wanted to represent something that i thought was a very interesting, complex and beautiful place. [smith] yep. Is there something specific about the native community in oakland that people should take away from thisook or that you want people to understand better as a result of what youve done here . Is the community in oakland any different is the Oakland Community something specific . [orange] i think people om oakland know the oakland experience and can recognize it. I dont know iou know, its in the book. But i think there are probably more commonalities between native People Living in cities in but other major citiesprobably than there are differences. You geow, native people iral haveore commonalities than differences, and thats true of urban native people. [smith] i think whats interesting is thetereotype, if someone said to you, im gonna read a book a native american novelist thats going to be about the native experience, ina native american novelist i think you would imthat it would be more on the land than in a big city. So theres something kinda counter to conveional wisdom or to the stereotype it about that. E] uh huh. [smith] talk a little bit about that. You say in the book, beg indian is not necessarily being of the land. I kept thinking, at every page here, i kept thinking, this as much y about detachment from the land or at least from the stereotype as it is about anything. [orange] yeah, so, you know, theres this sort of tension between reservation natives and urban natives. [smith] yeah. Deension between reservation natives and urban natives. [orange] and its this that you dont have a land base. I mean, if you grow up in a community whvee you feel like you land base and you see other people of your tribe, and maybe theres evel of relationship to the language, you know, thats an easier place to bld an identity. And a lot of urban native spaces are intertribal. So you got somebody thats like three different tribes, and so you cant necessarily pick one and say that one is more important. But the land thats often being referred to is reservation land that people were moved to. Not always. But the idea that somebody that grew up in the city has no basis for identity because they dont h connection to some mythical land thats been brought up for too long, [smith] thats a construct. [orange] yeah, its a construct. Yo, 70 percent of native people have been living in cities for over a decade. [smith] right. Buone difference we were visiting about this earlier, one difference is that, on t reservation, theres a presumed sovereignty or kind of an insularity or an intimacy to the community, and out in the city, that, both for good and for bad, is t there. [orange] mmhmm. [smith] right . [onge] yeah. Yeah, i mean, there isnt, theres not technically, you know, urban pepele in cities are not le. But its an experience that imriting about, and often theres, like i said, thert s people from differibes, theres a lot of intermarriage between tribes ornaetween white people anve people. Like you were saying earlier, i drove back to oklahoma growing up and saw my relatives there and understood that theres a people that i come from and thats where they are now. So all this identity stuff very messy, but its a mess that were moving deeper into. You know, by 2042, whites are the minorities. Sy, and were talkin about a big mix of different mixes of people. And i think we have to find better ways and not singular ways of talking about what people are. Mith] so for someone like felix, your son, he wants to understand native culture. Technology is at his disposal. I mean, yoally have a scene in which orville redfeather, in this book, 14 years old, kind of googles Indian Culture, or looks on, i know if its youtube, but basically goes online to learn about Indian Culture. I mean that really, i thought, was such an interesting little statement on, you know, how far weve moved away from the experience of understanding who you are and what you are, that ych now have to access logy to take you back. So that is one big fference now, is that the preservation or the persistence of indian lture, in some ways, relies on people being able to get access to aspects of it that they may not ence on a day to day basis, which invariably, like Everything Else in the world, involves technology. [orange] yeah, and i think culture is a living concept and it shouldnt, we shouldnt need to reach back. I mean, sure, you bring stuff along, but native people have been adapting for 500 years in different ways, and culture changes, its not a static thing. [smith] yeah. So how do you help your son understand who he is and who you are and what Indian Culture is, in your own life . [orange] i mean, the same way any otherace would, you know, you have conversations. Theres not. This question comes up and it, you know, its not different tn, like he knows whfamily is and he knows, we tell him stories and we have conversations about what it mean hes part chinese, too. Sometimes the question is bothersome because it feels like it means he needs to be doing something thats traditional thats the very thing im sort of speaking against. [smith] exactly. [orange] you know what i mean . So its complicated. Theres not an easy answer. Erd hes a mix of dit things. So its a hard question to answer because theres no simple aner like im taking him to powwow dance lessons. [smith] but your experience being biracial growing up, and in fact ive heard you say that sometimes y were, you know, called out mistakenly for beinese when you were growing up. I mean, the fact is that everybody is a x of everything, or a lot of people are a mix of everything these days, and so its probably not that unusual tht you have to sort of srough all that and you just move on with your life. [orange] well, like i sa, its a subject that we need to get better at talking about, because its complicated and theres so many facets to it. And were moving further into that, were not away from that. [smith] were moving toward it. [orange] yeah, were moving toward it mith] you teach at the school in santa fe where you got your mfa. Youre not there all the time, but youre, like, doing a week a month . [orange] uh hmmm. [smith] is tght . Tell me about the students you encounter. What are you doing to