BENEATH the SHADOW of the RED ROCK: a NOVEL with a CRITICAL INTRODUCTION and an AFTERWORD a Dissertation by CATHERINE ANGELA
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BENEATH THE SHADOW OF THE RED ROCK: A NOVEL WITH A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION AND AN AFTERWORD A Dissertation by CATHERINE ANGELA BARTLETT Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, Nandini Bhattacharya Co-Chair of Committee, Qwo-Li Driskill Committee Members, Robert J. Griffin Angela Pulley Hudson Cara Wallis Head of Department, Maura Ives August 2016 Major Subject: English Copyright 2016 Catherine Angela Bartlett ABSTRACT This scholarly-creative dissertation uses a decolonizing storytelling methodology to investigate the 1979 Church Rock uranium spill near Gallup, New Mexico, where an open-air uranium waste pond breached its earth dam, releasing over 1,000 tons of radioactive mill waste and 93 tons of tailings into the Río Puerco. Contaminants traveled over eighty miles downstream, poisoning ground water, livestock, and sacred land primarily on Navajo-Diné lands. In the decades since, a full waste cleanup has never been conducted, families have remained on their poisoned homelands, and the spill’s health effects have claimed many lives. A scholarly introduction disrupts a singular American ecocritical genealogy by disentangling the linkages between settler colonialism, gender, spatiality, and race among those affected by uranium mining along the northwestern corridor of New Mexico. This introduction also presents postcolonial ecology and alternative cartography as well as characteristics of Indigenous and Chicana literary production, and affect theory in its abilities to re-member the spectral, racialized female subject. The creative portion of the dissertation is a novel, which deploys a decolonizing storytelling methodology to focus on the wellbeing of an Indigenous-Chicano family and its community, in particular its Chicana-Indigenous narrator, through an enactment of slow violence that leads up to the uranium spill, documents the dissolution of the family, and points to the spill’s (after)effects. The novel elevates community and kinship, ii communal ties to the land, and tradition-based knowledge as central tenets of environmental justice movements. The novel also challenges concepts of Latin familism such as collectivism and interdependence that typically constitute an ethics of care and caring. An afterword presents my own process as a novelist. Finally, a creative nonfiction essay presents my own process as a novelist and offers some pedagogical implications for classroom discussions about the novel. It also discusses shared similarities with the more traditionally defined area of literary cartography, specifically the prevailing notion of the story as a cartography of discovery. Rather, I argue that alternative cartographies are less about discovery and more about excavating the stories already sedimented within disenfranchised communities, the land itself, and the re-member bodies of formerly spectral, racialized female characters. iii DEDICATION For my parents, Lucy and the late Carl Bartlett, who made all things possible iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Community is always at/in the heart of any dissertation. This is no less true of mine. Many rallied in support of my scholarly-creative work, as well as my emotional and physical health. I wish to thank you all; I’m grateful beyond words. First and foremost, I give thanks for my committee co-chairs, Dr. Nandini Bhattacharya and Dr. Qwo-Li Driskill. Nandini and Qwo-Li are true, stalwart, big- hearted, and beyond generous. It is my distinct privilege to count them as both mentors and friends. Drs. Robert J. Griffin, Angela Pulley Hudson, and Cara Wallis round out my committee. To a person, they have been generous and keen readers of my work. I’ve been afforded the gift of their incisive minds, their friendship, and their unceasing dedication to my success. Thank you all. Some friends have served as unofficial committee members throughout my time here. Paramount among them has been the amazing staff of the Texas A&M University Writing Center. Dr. Valerie Balester and Dr. Candace Hastings both gave unstinting support and welcomed me into several writing retreats that propelled my work forward. Candace has earned her well-deserved moniker, “The Dissertation Whisperer,” and it is thanks to her that I completed my dissertation at all. I also give unending thanks for my friend and fellow writer Flo Davies. Our writing sessions, support, and laughter made this place and the dissertation-writing process that much more bearable. v In the English Department, I wish to thank Dr. Shona Jackson, Dr. Sally Robinson, and Dr. Nandra Perry for their guidance on my journey. Dr. Vanita Reddy has been a friend and has let me befriend her German Shepherd Gypsy. Dr. Sonia Hernandez and Dr. Felipe Hinojosa in the Department of History deserve special mention as mentors who have gone the extra mile for me and all Latinx students. Sonia honored me by reading parts of my dissertation. I’m privileged to count them as friends. My best friends—Alma Villanueva, Laura Morris, Crystal Bustamante, and Ryan Neighbors—have given more friendship than a person can ask for. I love you all, and I thank you for everything. I owe as well a special debt of gratitude to the Calmecac Collective: Casie Cobos, Marcos Del Hierro, Victor Del Hierro, Aydé Enríquez-Loya, Garret Avila-Nichols, Gabi Rios, and Stephanie Wheeler. Thank you for paving a path for those of us who followed. My sisters—Charlotte, Carol, Cheryl, and Camille—have offered laughter, food, and board games. Camille and David Hoy always provided home and hearth in Amarillo. My niece and nephews (and their partners) also have been a great source of wisdom and love: Andrea and Matt Davis, Jonathon Bartlett and James Steven, Michael Hoy, Nathan Hoy, and Matt Howard. I give the biggest, happiest love to my great-nephew and great- niece, Talan and Payton Davis, respectively. You brighten my world every day. Finally, I give all thanks and love to my mother and father. My mother, Lucy, for her stories, and my father, Carl, for bequeathing a love of language that brought those stories to life. I love you both beyond measure in this world and the next. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... ii DEDICATION .................................................................................................................. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... v TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................. vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW ................................... 1 Ecocriticism, Postcolonial Ecologies, and Chicana and Indigenous Feminist Theories, Or, The Struggle is Real ......................................................................... 6 Mapping Geographies of the Imagination ........................................................... 11 Creating Alternative Cartographies through Decolonizing Storytelling Methodology ........................................................................................................ 17 Theories of Affect and the Re-Membering of the Chicana and/or Indigenous Female Body ..................................................................................... 18 Theories of Affect and Affective Economies, Or, We Are Not All in This Together ............................................................................................................... 19 Chicana and Indigenous Feminist, Embodied Story-Making Tactics, Or, How I Wrote My Novel ................................................................................................ 25 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 42 CHAPTER II OF HOMELANDS AND MIGRATORY BODIES ................................ 45 Land of Enchantment: A Magazine Article ......................................................... 45 A New Journey for Rogelia James ....................................................................... 47 The Obituary Girl ................................................................................................. 51 Benton Yazzie, My Father ................................................................................... 57 A Narrow Escape ................................................................................................. 58 A New Friend, A New Project ............................................................................. 71 Edwin Etsitty, My Baby Boy ............................................................................... 78 A Familiar Enemy ................................................................................................ 80 CHAPTER III OF HOMELANDS AND STRONG BODIES ....................................... 95 A New Mentor ..................................................................................................... 95 A Meeting ............................................................................................................ 98 vii An Interview with Lindy Matsuda ..................................................................... 102 A New Problem .................................................................................................. 106 People Against Mining .....................................................................................