Writings
In the Shadow of the Eagle
“….Loring’s diary not only throws light on the legislative process, but also holds up a mirror to the dominant society’s entrenched thought patterns that allowed the members of Maine Tribal Nations to ‘remain invisible in plain site’. Loring’s belief that understanding and communication through education will foster new harmonious relationships is the hope of indigenous people everywhere. In the Shadow of the Eagle places Maine’s Indian Tribes clearly within the global struggle of all indigenous people for their inherent rights of sovereignty, self-determination, human rights and human dignity. It should be required reading for all legislators and throughout the state’s school system.” -Gale Courey Toensing, reporter, Indian Country Today (In memory of my friend Gale Courey Toensing who was passionate about her work and telling the truth. Feb 5th 2018)
“We Are the First People And First Nations of this Country” and “It is Up To Us” in Enough! Poems of Resistance and Protest. Edited by Claire Millikin and Agnes Bushell
Enough! Poems of Resistance and Protest is an anthology of poems by 27 Maine poets who, in the midst of a pandemic, of lockdowns and quarantines, of protests and death and struggle, took up their pens to give voice to what this time feels like. Praised by Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco as “a powerful, prevalent and unflinching collection of political protest poetry in response to systemic racism and economic injustice,” Enough! speaks directly to the moment in which we find ourselves. With photographs of Portland protests by documentary photographer Nicholas Gervin.
“Red Hot Heaven” in Breaking Bread. Edited by Deborah Joy Corey and Debra Spark
A collection of essays by top literary talents and food writers, Breaking Bread celebrates local foods, family, and community, while exploring how what’s on our plates engages with what’s off: grief, pleasure, love, ethics, race, and class.
Here, you’ll find Lily King on chocolate chip cookies, Richard Russo on beans, Jennifer Finney Boylan on homemade pizza, Susan Minot on the non-food food of her youth, and Richard Ford on why food doesn’t much interest him. Nancy Harmon Jenkins talks scallops, and Sandy Oliver the pleasures of being a locavore. Other essays address a beloved childhood food from Iran, the horror of starving in a prison camp, the urge to bake pot brownies for an ill friend, and the pleasure of buying a prized chocolate egg for a child.
Profits from this collection will benefit Blue Angel, a nonprofit combating food insecurity by delivering healthy food from local farmers to those in need.
Preface and Writings in Walking on Our Sacred Path Edited by Isabel Dulfano
Indigenous women from the Americas are on the frontlines of activism in battles ranging from environmental protection, cultural and language revitalization and preservation, sovereignty campaigns, sexual violence, and human rights. This book introduces voices of Native activists blazing trails of resistance in new fields of engagement. Interviews with contemporary Native women from the northern and southern hemispheres of the Americas highlight commonalities amongst them and diverse paths of resistance work. Artists, lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists, athletes, educators, economists, and legislators seek societal transformation and reframe modes of resistance from their areas of expertise and Indigenous identity. For students in ethnic studies, gender studies, Latin American and American studies, sociology and anthropology, the conversations provide insights of Native women dynamically involved in shifting the socio-cultural imaginary and the futures of their Nations.
One Nation, Under Fraud: A Remonstrance
Hon. Donna M. Loring
Hon. Eric M. Mehnert
Joseph G.E. Gousse, Esq.
This Remonstrance presents a counter-cultural narrative and analysis of Maine’s legal, political, economic, and social interactions with the Wabanaki people. Although contemporary indicia of abuses by the State are glaringly obvious, a cohesive modern narrative that incorporates Maine’s history of predation upon and mistreatment of the tribes has remained poorly defined from an historico-legal perspective. Presenting its analysis through an historic, legal, political, economic, and social nexus, this Remonstrance traces the ontogeny of control exerted by the State of Maine over the Wabanaki tribes and endeavors to excavate the hidden historical narrative of the calculated politico-legal regime that has for two-hundred years driven the State’s coercive policies. In so doing, this Remonstrance examines the economic imperatives of the early American and Maine governments and the outgrowth of policies aimed at generating wealth from the stolen resources of Wabanaki tribal lands through an in-depth analysis of the transcripts of the legislative hearings (referred to here as the “Indian Papers”) that led to the commissioning of the Proctor Report of 1942.These Indian Papers are undeniable primary evidence memorializing the strategy the State undertook to affect a regime of isolation, control, and elimination of the tribes. The Authors believe that the Indian Papers and other documents analyzed herein have been heretofore neglected as competent evidence of Maine’s conscious orchestration of coercive policies carried out and retroactively legitimized through fraudulent jurisprudence. Through critical analysis, the Authors arrive at the conclusion that not only did the State of Maine have actual knowledge and intent to thrust an illegitimate politico-legal regime of suppression upon the tribes, but—despite acknowledging its past bad acts—it consciously chose to adopt many of these same tactics more than one hundred years later.