♪ ♪ buckeye broadband along with these television companies support cspan2 as a public service. next it is a book tv set monthly in-depth program with historian and activist roxanne dunbar ortiz her books include outlaw woman and indigenous peoples history of the united states. and recently published, not a nation of immigrants. >> host: roxanne dunbar ortiz and want to start our conversation today with a quote from your most recent book not a nation of immigrants. in that book you write the plains of the united states isn't nation of immigrants as

a benevolent version of u.s. nationalism, what you mean by that? >> will in the past, before that terminology a nation of immigrants, arose, there was a degradation really of immigrants, very hard processing of acceptance, which still exists with chinese, the first immigration law was the exclusion of chinese, it is mainly a bin about exclusion. but this term, a nation of immigrants, is actually very recent. i was surprised actually to find that it dates to 1958 planets by john f. kennedy when he was senator. it seemed to me that his

purpose was planning to run for president, that he had a difficult path because he was a child of immigrants, irish and catholic. and every president up until that time of his presidency had been either anglo or scots, irish. and protestant. so, i think what he emphasizes in the little book he published called a nation of immigrants, he emphasizes all of the great qualities about the irish in particular. it's mainly about that. but, the terminology i don't remember it frankly when i was in graduate school in history

in the 1960s i don't remember the term having caught on yet. i think it was with multiculturalism more in the 1970s, 80s and by the 19 '90s it is in all of the textbooks, and public schools. and it simply an accepted term. so i see it as a post world war ii, postwar competition with the soviet union to create a positive image, but people around the world were seen on television were black people being a bloodied and beaten in the south. the desegregation movement, so this competition was not only in weapons and economics but

also cultural and the soviet union and cuba were definitely publicizing these negative qualities. so i think the nation of immigrants i the lot john f. kennedy was able to initiate. he was not alive when it finally passed in 1965 but it did open up immigration for the first time to non- european immigration. there was this liberal tinge, i would say the new nationalism but of course we also have a fast developing white nationalism that opposes that friend is still not want immigrants, people of color,

pretty much want a white republic. so it's not uncontested. >> host: when we go back in history if we go back to the 1700s or so, whether open borders at that time into the united states? >> there were no immigration laws but there was a great deal of suspicion of some immigrants. not anglo once or scots, or germans. but, alexander hamilton was absolutely paranoid about french immigration, that was during the french revolution. that these revolutionaries would infiltrate the united states and create ideas. so the acts during that time,

which hamilton was a major author of, was a preventative. so there was a great suspicion of anyone who is not english-speaking or german. or scandinavian soon after. and that very beginning it was pretty limited. and of course only males and at first her property could be actual citizens. that was the very simple terms of citizenship. >> roxanne dunbar ortiz throughout your historical text you use a phrase settler colonialism what you mean by that? >> settler colonialism is the one kind of western european colonialism that started in

the 15th century with the law of europe at the time of western europe and catholic europe was from the holy see, from the vatican that was international law and all law had a pronouncement that law gave portugal, portugal wasn't really a state but portuguese monarch the right to invade, occupy, africa and enslave all of the people. that was the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade. lisbon was the major slave market and the mediterranean. but they with columbus a voyage in 1492 which was commissioned by the monarch of

what would become spain very soon, that they care after 14922, 1493 the same gave all of the western hemisphere to the spanish monarchs. to enslave all of the people there to own all of the property simply by the notion of discovery so the doctrine of discovery that is really what it became which is still the law in the united states and most of western europe. it is still the law, even now today this mid- evil is inscribed in u.s. law through the supreme court decisions

that were made in the 1830s. so, the center colonialism is a type of european colonialism that began at the time. it already existed, the british were well practice because for centuries they had colonized ireland and they had been introduced settler colonialism divisive to push out the irish peasant from the land they owned to bring in anglo and scott settlers. this is how we get the scots irish, which my father's family is descended from. and when they came, migrated to the united states they came as a very seasoned settler

colonialists. the period that established, this still exist today as a contested territory. still under the british empire. these things are not just history but this is the first developed over a couple of centuries and implemented that was then brought to north america. and because of the first landings of the puritans, before that jamestown. and especially with jamestown which is always a play down and u.s. history to favor the puritans than these mercenary john smith's and armed really violent immediate taking of

the land and pushing out the people, very violently. they also found the native people were agrarian people, scorned corn, squash, beans, a triad of american agriculture before columbus, another item which they use for ceremonies very quickly became a prize commodity and everyone got addicted to it. so it never had low points. it only grew and grew and grew.

so that was i think the formation and the british empire that what these colonies, what this rich land could be appropriated for the native people who would already developed the land and it was already agricultural land. they had manicured the forest, they had built roads all over, really all over the continent. were talking now the eastern seaboard. and simply appropriating what already existed and pushing the people out. this was in part possible because they already had the knowledge and mechanisms for doing that in ireland. it also developed as a program in itself. a type of settler colonialism. this was replicated later

because it works so well, and the north american colonies was applied in canada, british holdings in canada, applied a leader in new zealand and australia. these are the prototypes of settler colonialism. later the spanish, and the later 1700s saw the success instead of looting and mining that agriculture was very successful in north america. in the argentina or what is now go away, they use settler colonialism, a horrible

violent ethnic cleansing, genocidal just as a north america. >> utility story not a nation about teaching the course and asking your students what did the united states look like geographically during the colonial period. you say most include all of the united states. >> yes, i call it my test of u.s. imperialism, that you ask them to draw what was initially there, the colonies. what was the first state when the united states was developed, draw a quick map of what the united states look like at its founding. i don't give those hints about how many states because i tipped them off. most of them do draw that

whole kind of continental, i asked them to do a flash thing and i grab it from them immediately so they can't rethink it. it is the subconscious manifest destiny that it was always to be. but of course it was not always to be. it took more than 100 years of daily unrelenting warfare to march across a continent in the invasion of mexico and annexation of half of a mexico there, in that time. so the continent was not filled out until 1890, which is the sort of marker of the wounded knee massacre in 1890

as the moment in which they were herded onto what were really concentration camps, guarded by army bases that later became reservations. this is something that can simply be mapped. i don't think educators are telling students this sort showing that map. it is so pervasive in the national consciousness of people in the united states that they see it as always having been that way. they immediately know they've made a mistake, no that can't be. it's a way of teaching to see we have all had that as a child. no one ever gave me a test but

i'm sure i thought the continental united states was always what it was. >> host: went in your life did you start questioning the history that you had learned? hugs well, chives not not an early bloomers in that respect. [laughter] i cannot say that i was. i grew up in a rural oklahoma it's not exactly a southern baptist, it's not exactly were you might be exposed to anything near the ideas i have now, but i think education is so important. higher education because that is when you possibly might bump into some knowledge and usually do. that is why many people, white nationalists and evangelicals

where i come from discourage higher education because of that, they know they are likely to lose that kid to knowledge. and so my first year at the university last year of high school i went to the first school in oklahoma to be integrated. so about 20 -- 25 out of 1500 students, 2025 lakh students were brought from the black

high school to central high which was not nearly as good a school as dunbar. it was called the dunbar lexical was far better educationally. it was the period of school integration. this is 1956, a couple years after the supreme court decision desegregating school. so for the first time i was in community with black people who are being abused every day by white people slamming their lockers, breaking into their lockers, actual fistfights. the young black students i was

silly had been trained not to react, not to fight back. they were very dignified and it just amazes me, there is no way to avoid all had to work it was a trade school so we had jobs. it's not like i was there the full day. i would observe these things. i was appalled but i think something in my upbringing, maybe being a southern baptist or my family, my grandfather dunbar had been a member of the socialist party in oklahoma. my dad was more liberal but he was very proud of his dad. so i heard those stories and my grandfather's a sense of

justice and fighting against the ku klux klan. i became pretty quickly and antiracist. and i am very grateful for that experience because i am not sure i would have had that experience that led me then to other things. so at the university of oklahoma i met, fell in love and then married in the next year a young man who is an architecture student. and his family were liberals. and trade unionists. his father was the carpenters union they were a completely different setting that i live

there for five years -- for years before he moved to california. so i got educated but none of this lead to understanding settler colonial. they had big farmland that obviously had been southern cheyenne reservation at one time. but i did not question any of that. it took quite a while, graduate school. i think it was because i studied latin american history and graduate school that i came to understand u.s. imperialism. in the u.s. history classes, which i also took because i did my dissertation i had to do both. they never talked about imperialism. in fact they called it manifest destiny.

that led me on the path of wanting to understand this further. then i got involved, came as a young professor of african american studies, he is a japanese-american. i volunteered to be a teaching assistant. i used it's a great of him in ethnic studies sitting outside of the university was asked to be an expert witness and a

sovereignty case after wounded knee in 1973. i had to do a lot of studying might dissertation from precolonial times to the present. i knew about it because the american indian movement was very active. i tried to refuse who was the lead lawyer said well you're probably a quick study and handed me an arm load of documents and books.

that experience that two week hiring and all of these people from pine ridge on the reservation came down didn't encampment along the missouri river. and learning, absolutely learning these native people i found, not just there but after words, the strong oral history and know the history of the united states like no one else knows it. from the point of view from their experience.

they're always with dates or whatever. the tip you off or you should go to look and fill it out. that is certainly the case. that has been sort of my research process. since that time that was 1974. we went professor dunbar ortiz before we leave not a nation of immigrants and look at some of your other books, i want to finish our discussion with this quote and it's james baldwin quote that you include in the conclusion of not a nation of immigrants. quote i love america more than any other country in the world. and exactly for this reason i insist on the right to criticize her. is that your sentiment as well? >> no. in fact in that paragraph i am

pondering has to swear their loyalty to the united states. it makes no sense to me. i do not love the united states. i don't know what that means. i love human beings and individuals i know. and i can say i love certain foods or something. but to love a a nationstate, i don't understand patriotism. it is a recent thing in world history. and it is a poison that

creates wars and madness and the kinds of division we have right now. who is the greatest patriot, so it's really criticizing all of them because i don't think he really meant that. everything else he wrote is hard to think that love is the first thing that would come to mind. in his united states from his experience. at least as historians we have to tell the truth. i think they should be objective we should not write should not write the parler history of the medieval ages is building up saying you have

to balance it with something good. about u.s. history. there's no limitations or apologies. but when they get to their own country i don't know that's true from other national historians british historians can be pretty objective about the british empire. they beat the french are more like the united states. i was actually criticizing which i really do. i really felt bad why does he have to say that? it's like an apology and it saying i have the right because i love the united states. i have the duty on or about the right to but i have the duty of it historian to tell the truth.

>> are 2014 book and indigenous peoples history of the united states, one the 20th 2015 american book award. and now, in that book, professor dunbar ortiz you look at some of the standard or common place historical eras of the division. they include the colonial area, the jacksonian period, civil war and reconstruction, industrial revolution and gilded age, imperialism, progressivism, world war i, depression, new deal, world war ii, cold war, vietnam, how would you rewrite those? are those fair divisions for studying history? >> guest: in that book i debated with myself. i talked with other colleagues

about how to reorder the of the united states that would be more accurate. but i felt it is a lot to ask of people who take away the framework that exists. i pretty much worked within the framework. it also criticized it while inside of it. so for instance, most historians, there is some changes now. but up until things started changing a little bit after 911 and the bush administration and invasions of iraq and afghanistan, maybe the united states of imperialists. i sit with imperialists from

the beginning they usually date 1898 overseas invasion of the philippines, guam, hawaii and all the pacific islands occupy them, the philippines for 40 years that makes it a period that ends with world war ii. but the united states is founded as an imperial state. it is a division of the british empire. nothing really changed in terms of goals. and the goal of europe, western europe from early tines from marco polo to overseas imperialism was to capture the wealth of china. there is an obsession with china it's also the founding fathers of the united states,

this goal to get to the pacific. they actually had maps in the north west which is not middle congress the belt before the constitution and they folded it into the constitution. the northwest ordinance hasn't maps in it, a plan to get to the pacific. so they had lines drawn. at first they were going to be separate sovereigns each state, massachusetts a sovereign state, wasn't yet federal lies, they had massachusetts a trough across the continent to the pacific, ending up on the pacific. each state with its own

territory it within capture. it's holding all of territory west of the mississippi at that time. that would be the first thing is to get rid of the spanish. inchoate to immediately did not refer to the pacific, the first thing they plan to conquer which was the ohio valley. this was i think the main reason for independence was the british proclamation of 1863 that forbade the british settlers from going into the ohio valley. they were already going in led by daniel daniel boone and others were squatting on

native peoples land. but also even george washington made his fortune through land claims. he was going and with his militia. as a child i wondered why this man in fancy dress and a plantation was a surveyor. i had a cousin who was a surveyor he was tromping around the mud. a working-class guy i could not put it together but of course he did not tromp around. he led his militia to map these un- ceded lands and he made a fortune off of selling these deeds. he was not the only one. many of the founders were holding these deeds that were no good unless they could

actually claim the land and then make it good, make the proper deed. this was i think a major cause. in the declaration there is a lot about truths, being restrained, protecting the savages which were always native americans. all those were about the proclamation, that is about the barrier that was put. they not only forbade anyone from going in there, the british sent redcoats to actually go in and bring people back. supposedly the colonial militias were supposed to be doing that too. they all had an investment or most of them and investment and taking that land.

that was a major reason for independence. i call that being founded as an empire when your goal is to get to the pacific to then dominate china that's called imperialism. i don't change the order i have a chronology that is a usual one. but within those i change the argument of what happened. >> your book and indigenous peoples brings to mind 1980 book of the united states is that a fair comparison? >> i loved the book when it came out in 1980. i adopted it, my introductory history class, my university

immediately. it was such a gift for students to have a readable almost poetic books that told the truth. so i loved it i got to know howard and his other books. it is such a classic and marker for change in the teaching of u.s. history. but i did feel it opened like no other book at that time. not a paris colonial native people were there it was mostly not very accurate information, if at all in u.s.

history text. he starts with genocide and it is a very moving first chapter that simply had not existed before. so, for the native students and others in teaching native american history classes it was unprecedented to have a book that started in that way. that really goes up it does not really deal with what happened during the civil war the u.s. military did not miss a beat and it's move across the country. the rounded up the navajo people they could round up and marched them along the walk.

half of them died in a desert concentration camp where they were left until after the civil war. the army went into minnesota to protect the scandinavian settlers who had come in and were forcibly trying to force the dakota farmers out so war started. the u.s. army intervened and had the largest mass hanging and u.s. history took place during the civil war. it was all dakota people. the massacre that took place in the west 394 people were massacred.

and of course the genocidal into the northern cheyenne. these do not appear in the civil war section of civil war writers that also does not appear in the book. he does get back to the army in the west and that genocidal wars. and then deals with the wounded knee massacre. but then it cuts off the whole h century is nothing about native people until the 1960s and the red power movement. i used to ask him where the native people were, were they

hibernating, what were they doing? he would say to me i don't know how to write that, you have to do that. that is sort of what i decided to do was fill in to make it more complete. it is still a very wonderful book in and of itself that i think is not only to be honored but everyone should read. there's a young adult version of it that is available to young people. my indigenous peoples history of the united states is also in a young adult version now. >> and, thanks for joining us on book tv today. this is our in-depth program where we have a one author on to talk about his or her body

of work. this month is historian author and activist roxanne dunbar ortiz. she started publishing books back in 1997, red dirt growing up okie was her first break outlaw women a memoir of the warriors came out in 2001. indigenous people history of the united states came out in 2014 which won the american book award in 2015. all the real indians died off and 20 other myths about native americans came out in 2016 loaded and disarming history of the second amendment, 2018. and her most recent which we have discussed, not a nation of immigrants settler colonialism, white supremacy and the history of erasure and exclusion just came out this year. well, we want you to participate in this conversation with roxanne dunbar ortiz. this is how were going to do

it with the phone numbers up of the square minor 202 is area code for all of our numbers, if you live in the east and central time zone 748-8200 is the number for you to dial. if you live in the mountain pacific time zone (202)748-8201. now we have a third phone line this is a fort text messages only 2-027-488-2903. go ahead and send in the text please include your first name and your city as well. text messages only on that line. you can also find us on e-mail book tv@c-span.org. and on social media, instagram, facebook, twitter@book tv's are handled. that is what you need to remember. we'll begin your phone calls very shortly. roxanne dunbar ortiz you said your first book is red dirt growing up okie what is in

okie? that used to be a term that was created for the dustbowl refugees that during the depression they came to california it was a slur word of okie and it was shunned. it was fighting a word and oklahoma. then and my family migrated at that time. my father always said that only the wealthy farmers could migrate because they had cars or trucks and we didn't. my dad was a tenant farmer and did not own land. but he was hurt by it because there were no more small farmers to be a tenant for. but that term was not at all used.

i think until merle haggard, his beloved of course and oklahoma and california from the dustbowl family he is so beloved when heated okie from muskogee, that change. by the time i grew up the memoir i felt very free to use the term okie. until that is the origin of it a slur word turned around as a point of pride. >> host: and the author's notes of an indigenous people you write my mother was part indian, most likely cherokee born in joplin, missouri people underwrite other things and you conclude the paragraph by saying my mother was ashamed of being part indian, she died of alcoholism.

>> yes, i think i have rethought that since i published it. i think it is really important that native identity be identified with a tribe. it is not a race. there's no such thing as an indian, more than 300 different native nations and communities. so without ties never had ties with anything. it is pretty certain that my mother was not cherokee. there is no tracing it.

i think when i made that assessment at the time, i had not really given it enough thought. i have read thought it and i very much doubt that. i certainly would not call myself cherokee. so, my mother didn't die of alcoholism. she was not an alcoholic during my childhood and i was the youngest. she had a very hard life. she was orphaned, her mother died when she was four. she kind of shifted around shed eight brothers and sisters and shifted around to families. and then was in a school that was sort of more like a juvenile place she was 15 when

she met my dad literally working on a ranch in the northeast. he came back to the home town where i was raised, or his father and the whole clan both sides of his family had and oklahoma. they all left and moved to texas except him. so they married when my father was 17 and my mother was 15. so young, really kids. she had been through a lot. she was a great mother to all of us. i was the youngest i was sickly and asthmatic. but when everyone wasn't grown up she did start drinking.

her dad was irish she loved her father he was apparently very jolly drunk. i never knew him but my older brothers and sisters adored him. this can be very generational. but i think she actually got from her irish father. the alcoholism. >> host: professor dunbar ortiz let's hear from some of our viewers. this is carl right here in washington d.c., carl please go ahead with your questions or comments very. >> i have a comment and a question. i want to thank you for your enlightening work. the question i have, how does your work command with the environment where we are trying to deny the true

history of american single white kids are being so hurt right medical rates there they had no problem when i was in school teaching little black sambo and cutting people's hands off and scalping people. and now the massacre, the wilmington massacre and the native american massacre break. >> karl i think with got the idea, professor. >> very good question. i never thought i would live to see the day that legislatures including my home state of oklahoma, making laws forbidding the teaching of critical race theory as it was being taught in the first

place in the states, in the schools. but also i think the one and oklahoma reads can criticize white people. that is really not what critical race theory is. it's not a critique of white people at all that is a critique of structures this is what they fear it is a structural is all of my historical work is not -- no attack on individuals, it is structural that in societies there is something that links people together in a nation

state. and the united states is founded as a white republic. there is just no way to deny that, it was founded as a white republic. it was all white they tried to make anil alexander hamilton part black at one time with a white republic. so everything that gets the art had 200 years of history as white societies that then became a white republic, a constitution written with that embedded in it, the protection of property, property remember the main property it was very important taking land from the native people and selling land. even more important especially by the time the cotton kingdom

was simply slave bodies, slave bodies made us the greatest assets, greater than all other assets combined in the united states by 1840 was simply the bodies bought and sold. not counting the unpaid labor. so, those were just facts is not criticizing any single living person who really even living persons at the time. it is how the structure we inherited, we today have to deal with that is problematic. we see it going on right now with the filibuster, electoral college, all of these things were built in to exclude and

to keep control written into the constitution with the extra voting power through the electoral college it was bite state two senators per state. no matter what the population. so here i am in california, 40 million people. we have the same number as of senators a south dakota with 150,000 people. that was very purposeful because the slave states were left populated in the northern states. they do have tremendous senatorial power. this is what critical race theory does is it takes that apart and explain it.

then you can do with it what you wish. you can say i don't want to know the truth and ignore it or you can say i have to learn more about that. no one is making you believe in something. but it is the truth. there really are things that are true. our simply facts. they are denying them does not mean they are not facts. >> tony is calling in from california. you are on with the story and roxanne dunbar ortiz. >> you know about the mexican american war and the annexation, wasn't abraham lincoln against the war when he was in congress but they convinced him to go along because the british would have come down south from canada?

they may have ended up helping deacon c the saved america the mexican american war. i really looked at this more about the border historical chapter the united states started, as i said they wanted to get to the pacific. they started sending spies to spanish territory exit on getting arrested in colorado which was spanish territory be

taken all the way to mexico city. of course they were trained spies they were mapmakers technically. and they drew maps along the way. so this was 1806 it still spanish territory the mexican revolution a couple of years later it broke out. ten year or so mexico became independent in 1821. slavers from missouri started in evading, taking land in texas, very rich land for cotton. and very, very early on. so the united states really that was in 1821 -- 1822. so they first took texas and

then it was independent. the spanish were gone and the united states had no role in it. but the spanish were gone, the mexicans had a very radical revolution. it pretty much got hijacked by the elite. but they remained a very volatile country they had a revolution in the 20th century that completely change the structure of the land. i don't think, from my studies, the literature on the invasion of mexico is very poor. actually the best source about the war is the u.s. army official account which is on the internet. the books written have all

kinds of different things who was for it, who was against it. the only people i found who were against it, the transcendentalist was a racial argument they did not want all of these brown people as citizens, to annexing all of it mexico. they did not want more indians. : : the irrational arguments that i think all of the northerners who are becoming abolitionists they

wanted to abolish and they didn't know what to do with -- that friedman was their main argument about that and how to get rid of them so wasn't exactly you know abolitionism except for a few very like john brown absolutely dedicated and saw and my people is totally equal and he's unique in that respect and we should honor him as being the arbiter really the avatar of starting a civil war but i don't think any of them were really against it strategically. they wanted that territory but abolitionists did feel you now because of what was developing in texas with that it would be,

it could be that it would reinforce power. the confederacy when it formed actually wanted to take over all of central america. they were as imperialist as the union was so in the west they often were fighting and not integrated but each of them had their armies fighting and the apaches in the novel hose. i think the invasion of mexico was, it created a border that i discussed quite a bit in the new

book, that is in stable cuts through people that straddle the border and cannot easily communicate with each other. it is an artificial landmark that was taken by violence and military violence. a preview of annexation that is, was done with the gun and had other occupations under occupation with the texas rangers running wild raping women and killing people and burning houses. it was a violent observation and

again to finance relief. i also have a degree in international human rights law and humanitarian law. that is a legal treaty so mexico if it had any power it did not suffer from going to the world court, anyway the united states wouldn't show up but it could be won by default. to reopen negotiations about that border and do something about it a cause it's not going to get any better. it's a violent border and most people in the united states are totally unaware of the history of how it came to be. >> host: you are watching booktv and this is our "in depth" program. an author on his or her body of work in this month is roxanne

dunbar-ortiz and we will continue our conversation with her in just a minute.

>> for me i had been working on the 2016 campaign trying to live out the dream of electing a president here in the united states and was really surprised in the aftermath of that election to see the wave of women's activism not only here in the united states but around the world. if you think back to the 2017 women's march it was on every

continent and it was organized nationally in only 10 weeks because of this writing activism and women inform policies came together and we started to see not only an increase in their voices moving to the #me too movement and then ultimately to an incredible rise in political participation in a broad range of countries. afghanistan to brazil to places in the middle east that would surprise you. we were struck by the incredible waves and actually had the opportunity to host nadia and women's activists as survival of

sexual abuse at the hands of isis committing sexual abuse against women and we began trading stories about what we are saying around the world but the stories were not being told in the american media. lucky for me mehgan agreed to join together and took this journey round the world and that's how we got to awakening.

>> host: we are back live with roxanne dunbar-ortiz whose most recent book is not an age of -- and the history of the ray sure and exclusion. back to your phonecalls that hear from barbara in massachusetts. barbara please go ahead. >> caller: hi peter and high dr. iatse. i come to this phonecall. the hbo documentary about the history of centric colonialism and genocide and dr. are teased book is sitting in my lap taken out at the library on martha's

vineyard where the wampanoag still live. i really want to promote exterminate alll the bruises and i note doctorate tees will tell us more about it. if you go to amazon.com now they are selling all three of the books that are a historical backstop for this extraordinary documentary which is four hours in a premiered on hbo. you are listening to the founder of the facebook page, the friends of ralph check in i hope everyone after watching the documentary will come and join the conversation which is taking off. please tell us how you got involved with ralph check in how he reached out to you and family want to say this is the documentary of the decade and that's the documentary of 2021.

it really spirit a revolution with the historical record. >> host: thank you barbara. roxanne dunbar-ortiz. >> guest: it is exact we as she described. it is a paradigm shift and in anything that's ever been on television i think especially broad television, it hbo. it's long been one of my favorite filmmakers and of course i didn't know him and i have never met him and i never expected in my lifetime i would meet my favorite filmmaker and one day i get a call from him and this was three years ago in the spring of 2018 and he told

me about this and i knew something called cell that was his production company but i didn't know that had optioned the book for a film and i thought some small but company but i had no idea was packed. he started telling me about the idea that he wanted to use my book and he had already listens to other books on the shelves and the haitian historian his book silencing the past and exterminate all the roots the name of a book by a swedish

writer and that compares the genocide of colonialism the colonial genocide asas a precurr to the colonial genocide and southern africa after the holocaust. and he had had these books he was working with adapting and discovering. he discovered my books and just before it came out in c the freh edition so it was the english version and i was very excited but he said i also want to work with you because the other two authors passed away so he asked me to work on the script with him. so i did that for the next couple of years and that's what i've been doing.

it's been a fantastic experience and then in april the launch, i had seen it in various phases and i had seen the final but still sing it and knowing that millions of people were watching all over the world was just so exciting because it is about colonialism and militarism and it focuses ones the united stats and africa and the congo and also the caribbean. so i agree all kinds of curriculum is being developed around it. we have a book planned that expands upon the themes in the

film but taking other situations and looking at them and that should come out sometime next year. so the project goes on and the caller said this is not just a 2021 project. it's going to be even more important i think 20 years from now as a guide to how the world works and how colonial genocide is produced -- has. >> the situation in the world that exist today. let's go mike in california, good afternoon. >> good afternoon. fascinating with the discussion about the desire to go to china even as far back as the northwest ordinance so i will definitely be looking into your

book for that but here in california we just had a headline overnight a pretty middle-class african-american family had some property in neither redondo beach or manhattan beach which is a suburb of los angeles and they were just awarded their land back that their family unjustly lost in the oklahoma situation i believe in the 1920s sometime around then and they just got their property back just yesterday. i wondered if you have had heard about that or havef any comment. thank you. >> host: bruce's beach in manhattan beach california, are you familiar with that story? >> guest: yes. i read the "l.a. times" and it's a great story. my first thought was this is the tip ofip the iceberg. if that happened to one family like that in california there

are many cases cases of this so i hope others come forward and make their claim and make it known now. i don't know if generations past some living people now may not even know what happened to their forebears but i think we will hear more about this kind of thing of land being taken not only from native people but from black people and the homes that they would lose. it was a time to be an the black community suffered the most of all with foreclosures having been having deeds and mortgages that they couldn't handle and great losses and people are

still suffering from that. >> host: lana in tulsa, oklahoma, roxanne dunbar-ortiz is our guest. please go ahead. >> caller: it's an honor to speak with you. i am unfamiliar with your work but i plan on reading as many as i can. i had commented earlier today and i don't know if i can say the network but "msnbc." she took a road trip to south texaste and interviewed a lot of the people whose families have lived there for generations and they were so kind to say we didn't cross the border. the border crossed us and they explained that there is only the human race and that being

hispanic or indigenous or black is cultural. it's an ethnicity and i thought you might enjoy hearing what those people had to say in my other question is, have a read your book but i'm trying to find my turkey ancestors and greetings from indian territory here in oklahoma. i'm curious if in your research if you knew anything about the bell star. i'm wondering if my ancestors lie to ferguson and -- brown hung out with them. just curious if these have run across those names. i know other researchers and historians here in tulsa are

also looking for people. >> host: thank you very much and we should point out that outlaw woman is mostly about roxanne dunbar-ortiz and her journey and in fact i want to read a quote from that book. quotee he said scruffy feminist like me were giving the movement a bad name. i told him i thought he feared losing her celebrity leadership position toos women who are committed to collective action with no meter and she wanted no more than -- no more than to put a few women in political office a aand as heads of corporation. he cat did -- he called me an anarchist. when did thatt conversation tape place? >> it was in the green room when we were on a tv show together. he was a piece of work. i respect her now that i'm more

mature myself. but we did then as younger women are very radical and not just betty but others were hopelessly liberal. so but i didn't repeat that. actually she lived to read it and was not happy with it. but she was a good person. that too the texas border, i actually saw that grow graham this morning. i did get up early in california and it was important. i hope you get to see the interview with mexican people on the side of the border in texas

that they did cross the border and i agree with that butee it should be open. and as for bell star it's interesting thatat the caller asked about that because that's shelved.at was i was working on it when i was asked to write "an indigenous peoples' history of the united states" and since then i've written. her books and i still haven't got back to my bell star book but in oklahoma with this is my greatest hero but they have heard of jesse james usually and she ran the jesse james gang. she was much younger but what they all were, jesse james,

younger brothers and endless movies, they were all confederate gorillas. they were on the side of the confederacy. this one -- once i learned that and it wasn't until i moved to california at age 21 that i actually learned that about jesse james and then it was a house of cards that jesse james was the confederate. they all were because they were living t together. i have a whole chapter on this in my book disarming the history of the 2nd amendment if anyone is interested in reading more about the bandits and the confederate gorillas that turned bandits and were great heroes of not only movie westerns but

children like me. i hope to get back to writing the book. and another connection is the goldstar daughter who got pregnant by a cherokee boy and a center to place and where they did this in those days and she gave birth and the child was taken from her and adopted out because the girl was only 13 years old. but it could have also been against the cherokees. that's the only native connection i know. >> host: donna in maine, please go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: hi. this is a wonderful program. thank you so much. i wish i could take your classes

but i will read your books just finished killers of theil flower moon about the osage indians in oklahoma and how they were robbed throughout their lives they were murdered actually and they couldn't get the rights to their oil which was called an underground reservation. having grown up in oklahoma you must have heard about that and i wonder when you were growing up what your personal experience has been regarding it. >> guest: thanks for the question. that was a situation and i have not read that book but i think it's very accurate from their

reviews i've read of it and it's important to understand that corruption and murders that took place with oil and gas and the violence of that development in oklahoma. even in a fairly small states like oklahoma which had 96 counties even though it's a very small state, where i grew up canadian county westst of oklaha city northwest of oklahoma city and the county seat is el reno. this is the land of the plains people. a land where corrupt had been taken away from the cheyenne nation. they are still there but the land was allotted in the late 19th century with a smallll

tribal headquarters but the kiowa comanches in the southern cheyenne were the people in the area where i grew up. i never even went to tulsa or osage country and didn't know it existed when i was growing i up. that is very provincial in oklahoma by sections of the state, central, southeast, southwest, northwest and northeast and people don't get much out of their counties much less do you know several counties away. i went to tulsa for the first time only since i moved to california. i finally visited tulsa and it seems like much more beautiful city than oklahoma city and the more eastern kind of city.

it was settled by a lot of entrepreneurs from the east so it's a very different place. where i grew up it's more southern and southern baptist and more like the south. even though it's the plains and he gets out into the plains. so i didn't know anything and i had no knowledge from that time only what i had bread and i had several osage friends and i followed when they were writing their new constitution. i followed the very closely because i hadn't osage friend who is involved in writing it but that's very recent and i can't help you with any more. >> host: cecilia's calling in

from the pine ridge indian reservation in south dakota could cecilia you are on with roxanne dunbar-ortiz. >> good morning roxanne. >> guest: hi cecelia. >> caller: i just wanted to thank you for your book. yesterday on the banks of the sicilian river a 52-foot steel image of the lakota woman. yesterday we celebrated by dedicating it to remind women that they are powerful. they are awesome and are the back one of our nation. roxanne this 52-foot image to me is an archetype for all indian women to uplift themselves and learn more about their culture and learn more about ceremony

and learn more about their language but most importantly roxanne it's an image that we will use in south dakota to try to teach the white people and remind them that it wasn't long ago, for centuries ago their ancestors came to america to look for a better life. we have so much teaching that we have to share with their nonindigenous relatives who live on our land, to remind them that they too came from somewhere and that we are the owners of this great land and we are sharing it. roxanne i'm so excited about this and i hope you know about it and that you can help promote the appetite so weakening gauge other native women to be proud of who they are. >> host: cecelia thank you for

calling in. guess the thank you cecilia. i didn't know about the ceremony it's just very exciting and i wish i could have been there to experience it. there is a lot of news now about missing and murdered native women which is just the catastrophic colonial issue that is related to reservations being still under colonial control and federal control so that they are not allowedni to have criminal investigations internally so excited green lights flashing on the sides, on the borders of reservations.

it's free, rape any woman you want a no come to the reservation. it's a huge problem and i think deb haaland the secretary of interior when she was a congressperson took this up as a major issue of native women and it's only now getting publicized because of the murdered young woman from florida and people started saying well what about the black women and the native women and the mexican women who are being murdered? so thank you for your lifelong work cecelia with the dakota, lakota that are pretty amazing. >> host: if the text from jonathan in washington d.c.. he identifies as -- and he

writes to you we seem on the verge and maybe in the middle of pop culture political native renaissance. poet laureate the reds dog show and other social safety means. deb haaland and then he asks you is that overstating it or not? what do you think? >> yeah it's very exciting. i see the groundwork for that for building up and it's paying off. but the hard work of native people and activists and environmental activists and students and as native people have taken professorial

positions at universities and have a presence there and speak out people are learning and there have been events like the standing rock standoff and uprising that had been going on for six months before i was even publicized and did get a lot of attention around the world. iid think also the campaign to o away with the washington teams and other ball teams at every level around the country. names begin the news in california with the renaming of squaw valley and lake tahoe and there are several towns named

squaw valley in california that being debated and oliver there are hundreds of towns that use the word. there's one powerful thing about the native movement it's at every grassroots level in the country there something that can be done. you don't have to go to a national march or whatever. you can start a discussion. like the basketball called indians inm is that appropriate because there are no native people on the basketball team were in the audience so i think that's the power t of it just te persistent work of native people and also people waking up. an ally shift with the red nations one of the preeminent native organizations activist

organizations. last summer we saw the statues coming down, confederate and others and you saw columbus coming down so i think we are beginning to have a new rainbow coalition that is so important and that includes right people. the rambo coalition by the way included whiteoa appalacian migrants in chicago so it's all people working at the grassroots level because the national level of politics i think it's going to take cultural and social change to change the politics. >> host: in her book all the real indians have died up what came out in 2016 roxanne

dunbar-ortiz some of the myths about the indigenous population such as the u.s. did not have a policy of genocide against native americans. sports mascots honor native americans the most indians are on government welfare and indians are rich because they have casinos and indians -- any comments about some of those myths? >> my co-author evo whitaker, the two of us really if any beacon press series of 21 myths with several books about unions and how they are bankrupting us and taking our jobs so this one was a myth about native

americans. it was very very hard to limit and we had to whittle it down from 100 paid when we got to 100 we said we had better start whittling it down. we could have gone on because there are no more mr. sized people in the united states than native peoples. the problem is people don't just say i'm ignorant, i need to learn something. they think they are in no things because there are so many myths and they believe that they are true. they believe the north american continent a very sparsely populated by roaming bands of

people and instead the eastern part of what is now the united states one of the seven original sites ofin agrarian civilizatio. the others are the andes, denial, the euphrates the poe river in china all at the same time so agriculture came in so the idea that they are so many myths and the idea of coming to a wilderness. there was no wilderness. native people earned every square inch and they had managed it for us. they lived with the land but they also adapted the land to them and ecological ways that we

have to learn again if we are going to survive. the myth of the savage and the myth of the ecological indian a perfect spiritual person and the otherco side is the savage but neither are what any human being is. so there's also the idea that all indians are alike and there is as many languages as there are native people. so the myth we finally came up with a think were important ones and i think people reading that look will sort of wins when i

find oh yeah that's what i thought. that's not true? i do here and i mentioned the renaming of and there are lots of editors and papers in california about squaw valley saying it was a complimentary term and that women like being called. this is the ventriloquist thing of what native people like and what they don't like and maybe one person will say i have no problem with that but it seems like it's only with native people that these kind of myths are very hard to overcome with truth because there are so many of them and they are soec jumbld together and it kind of makes a

person feel, i always have to tell students when iat was teaching native american history that they should not feel guilty about anything and there is no reason why they wouldn't learn anything i'm going to be teaching them before because it wasn't in the textbook and it wasn't in the curriculum and how are they supposed to learn but now they can learn. it's very very difficult i think to get over to large numbers of people but i think this movement, the wonderful thing about mask movements which i learned being a part of one in the antiwar movement in the segregation movement in the 60s is that you learn very fast without necessarily books

and manifestoes and beaches and listening to people. it's an extraordinary moment. we had that last year. they don't always last but they are very important for advancing and i think what we are seeing is the backlash of the critical racece theory and trying to reverse what people learned last year and i think the cat is out of the bag was so many of these things and people want to learn more. huskily a 15 minute left with her guest this month. tim in louisiana you are on the air. >> professor dunbar-ortiz my question covers the subject i haven't heard discussed yet thiu morning. during the second world war

there was i don't know if you want to call it an impairment or some sort of restriction of the japanese population on the west coast and i'm sure it was driven by the fear of an invasion from japan and so forth. i was wondering have you run across this inin your studies ad have you done any writings on i? >> there's a whole chapter in my new book not a nation of immigrants. itit includes, it's fundamentaly japanese and people in the united states cannot tell one asian from another and it

spreads to discrimination and also against japanese and southeast asians, everyone. but it goes way, way back. japanese farmers came in the late 19th century and they came to work in the fields with their agribusiness building up. they also went to hawaii. they were very poor country so there were people needing to send remittances back like people do now. they go toe rich countries in order to help their families back home in their communities but the japanese, i have long known about the detail about the internment because i taught in ethnic studies and might

colleaguet calling fong a chinese-american was instrumental with others in developing angel island where asians were really incarcerated before they could be let in or were deported but the japanese americans most of them are japanese americans who were interned. they mostly were by then in the early 1840s and 1940s were called truck farmers. they had small vegetable farms in the central valley and i think 90% of the came from japanese f farm so almost all te vegetables and fruits that were raised in california at that

time and got to the city's -- they are called truck farmers because they tracked from inside the city and sold them to stores and also had an open market. so they were uprooted. it was pure racism. there's no getting around it. i documented in the book the statements that were made about them, that asians can'te be trusted. they lie so if they say they are not supporting the fascist government they are probably lying so just to be safe we need to lock them all up. so they rounded them up but they also took their land and they took their property and never have returned it.

reparations were a token thing and only for the people who directly experienced it and most of them are already put away by the time itt was done and their heirs couldn't have it. so it hasn't been properly dealt with yet. the internment, the camps, one was in california but they were mostly in desert regions in idaho and new mexico and some were taken toe fort still in oklahoma. it was a experience. they have barbed wire around them and armed soldiers just like a prison with powers and they were watched. so it was a period of time and i

have written about it and i think it's very important. it reminded people, native people of their own incarceration and that was really the playbook the government was using like only 50 years before they were incarcerating native people and also introducing, they were all ready citizens. they spoke english and chinese but they tried to assimilate them in a way that would change what they were teaching and teach them patriotism so kind of a re-education camp they made of these internment camps asn well. >> host: before we run out of town we ask our authors to share

some of their favorite books and what they are reading now. here is roxanne dunbar-ortiz' list which is called from a larger list that she sent us. vietcong, the memorys, of war ad michelle were off silencing the past in the production of history. barbara ramsey ella baker in the freedom movement and their history is the future david reynolds, john brown abolitionists prisoners of the american dream and mahmoud man danny neither settler or native. he appears in some of your writing as well. what is his rolers in your life?

>> i have long been a great admirer of him. he's a professor at columbia university in uganda. he has published many books. he didn't excellent book on sudan that everyone should read. not understanding what was happening there in the north and the south but he started working on settler colonialism a decade or so ago with speeches and articles and then publish this book last year. he's a native settler and he's just brilliant. he asked me to read the book and i was on a panel discussing the book at columbia and i would become friends. we haven't met in person and in

his book he is native -- neither negative nor settler and uses my indigenous peoples history of the united states as one of thet references. he deals in a look with the united states which is very unusual to deal with in studies of colonialism for non-u.s. people so it's a real breakthrough in that sense because he is african, international and it brings european settler colonialism to a much larger audience than before but he also deals with apartheid south africa and palestinefr as well as colonialism. it's really an important book. plus who we want to show you some of the books that professor dunbar-ortiz is currently reading and they include dana.

>> out of come island honduras and samuel moyne, humane. can get another call in before time runs out. blame is in west palm beach, florida. thanks for holdingt on. >> caller: thank you. could you recommend a book around monroe louisiana and if you have time comment on the food freed the before the state was that a factor in independence from britain? >> repeat the last part. >> host: are you still with us? >> caller: yes. britain freed the before the state and did we see the writing on the wall and did it influence

our succession of britain? >> host: thank you sir. >> guest: thank you for that question. i'm serrated don't know any sources for northern louisiana and i will definitely look them up. >> host: and a general sense professor dunbar where do you recommend people go for the one to read about this, a library or a site that you can go to that is one t of your go to his? >> guest: all you'd have to do is google the history of northern louisiana and you would find references and articles and the possibility of not just the transatlantic slave trade but the movement in britain that

wanted to do just that. and it definitely made the in the colonies very nervous. i do believe -- i gave what i thought was the main reason was the proclamation of limited expansion but they wanted to expand and it was mainly the south that wanted to expand. they had worn out the land with commercialized agriculture with nonfood crops cotton and indigo and they needed to stay wealthy and to build their wealth in the british empire. they wanted to move into that rich land of the southeast where so-called civilized tribes the so-called agriculturists and

take that land and i think that's the main reason that the other reason and i would recommend reading gerald korn's book on this at definitely the fear of ending was predominant of the british public. i'd don't think that they were afraid they moniker he would do it but the people that were against that one out and would destroy the colonies because remember in the north some had outlawed already in new york but they were involved in the slave trade. most of the slave trade was

based in places like rhode island and the ports on the atlantic coast so everyone was compromised by and had an interest in continuing it. so definitely i do think -- and i also think keeping power in the southern states and the ownership of slaves to have two-thirds rather than one and two-thirds voting capacity and the electoral college that was formed.y these were things that were rejected in the southern states and to this day. >> host: professor we will have to leave it there. we are out of time. very quickly roxanne dunbar-ortiz' books and memoirs

out low women a memoir of the war years and "an indigenous peoples' history of the united states" which won the american book award in 2015 all the real indians died off and 20 other myths about native americans. enter mostst recent book not a nation of immigrants, colonialism white supremacy in the history of erasure and exclusion. thank you for being our guest on "in depth." >> guest: thank you, peter. ..