Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity

Journalist Lee debuts with a potent exploration of what it means to be Indigenous, beginning with his own childhood spent summering on Martha’s Vineyard, the Wampanoag homeland, where he attended tribal summer camp and learned the Wampanoag language but also performed tribal customs for tourists. Looking back at such disconcerting aspects of his tribal education, including “the absence of history” in his curriculum, Lee launches into a “personal investigation” of his tribe. He explains the “anomaly” of the Wampanoag, who remained independent far longer than their neighbors, until the mid-18th-century rise of the whaling industry made “once far-flung” Martha’s Vineyard “newly relevant.” Lee’s discoveries about his own family during this period complicate “the simple story I had been told about colonization,” as “the booming industry drew immigrant men and freed slaves” to the area, including a Black South American who married into his family. Lee also recaps how Wampanoag locals squared off against white homeowners over land rights in the 1970s, political turmoil which led Lee himself to journalism. He reported on attempts by Native groups around the world to “legally codify the rights” of rivers and animal species, and this work awakened him to a more expansive view of what Indigeneity looks like—not just “political sovereignty” but stewardship of the land and collective identity-making. A deft combination of affective memoir and keen journalism, this profound examination of identity and place impresses. (July)