WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I know Cally Crossley. This is the Cali Crossley Show. Writer Geraldine Brooks is here to discuss her new book Caleb's Crossing set on colonial era Martha's Vineyard. This is an American story a story about the converging of native and immigrant cultures. The narrator is a minister's daughter. His mission is to convert Native Americans. Her mission is to educate herself in a world where women are locked out of formal schooling. In her pursuit of knowledge she means Kaleb a member of the Wampanoags tribe. Caleb eventually crosses over to Anglo American poacher becoming the first Native American to go to Harvard Brooks's books is based on the real 17th century Caleb recently honored by Harvard. From there we mark Harper's three hundred seventy fifth anniversary with a history of Native American students on campus. Up next the Native American experience from literatura to the Ivy League. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh. Violent

confrontations continue between protesters and police in Cairo that have left at least 35 people dead and 2000 injured in recent days. Merrit Kennedy reports that fighting continues despite a short ceasefire a women's march enters Takhar Square chanting for the downfall of military rule. They're holding signs declaring their willing to be human shields for the front line of protesters. Meanwhile political forces are scrambling to find a way out of the deepening political crisis. They've held multi-party meetings and have had talks with the ruling military council parliamentary elections are scheduled for Monday. Some political parties have put forward proposals to transfer power to a civilian body. This comes as the ruling military council accuses its critics of trying to drive a wedge between the people and the army. They say they're determined to hold elections as scheduled. For NPR News I'm Eric Kennedy in Cairo. The father of one of the American college students arrested during protests in Egypt this week. Says his 19 year old son Derrik Sweeney has called home and says he's being treated well under the

circumstances. Sweeney and two other students were detained for allegedly hurling fire bombs on security forces that were fighting with anti-government demonstrators near Cairo's Tahrir Square. Well after months of resisting calls to resign. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is relinquishing power today in Saudi Arabia the Yemeni leader signed an agreement brokered by his country's powerful neighbors to transfer control to his vice president within 30 days. And the Yemeni leaders publicly committing to early presidential elections within three months in exchange Sally reportedly is granted immunity from prosecution. Conservatives who've just won power in Spain are asking Europe for a deal to save the country from spiraling debt costs. As Lauren Frayer reports from Madrid the interest rates on Spain's government bonds are pushing toward levels that saying Greece Ireland and Portugal. Into bailouts Spain's incoming leaders are under pressure to enact reforms quick as the economy sinks deeper into crisis. The Conservative party's deputy leader

is calling for a eurozone agreement to save and guarantee the solvency of Spain's debt that could involve a new rescue fund buying Spanish bonds. The European Commission says no formal aid request has come in. The next prime minister Mariano Rajoy won't be sworn in until late next month. But he spoke with Germany's Angela Merkel yesterday and told her that countries that meet their obligations must be helped by Europe. For NPR News I'm Lauren Frayer in Madrid in the U.S. durable goods orders have fallen seven tenths of a percent in October one main reason a big decline in demand for planes. At last check on Wall Street the Dow was down 159 points at eleven thousand three thirty four. This is NPR News. Consumer spending not much movement in October the Commerce Department reporting a one tenth of a percent jump last month. The least gain since July. However incomes did rise four tenths of a percent. Hackers

have released another batch of e-mails taken from a British climate lab. These potentially embarrassing e-mails come just before the start of United Nations climate talks. We have more on this from NPR's Richard Harris. The first batch of e-mails released two years ago caused an uproar right before the climate talks in Copenhagen. Although some were unflattering to the people who wrote them multiple investigations concluded that nothing in them undercuts the scientific basis for climate change. A second release appears to come from the same original trove of purloined emails. The University of East Anglia says at least some appear to be authentic and excerpts from these e-mails show more of the same. Scientists criticizing outsiders skeptical of climate change and sometimes criticizing one another's ideas. Investigators in Britain have not decided whether the release of these e-mails constitutes theft and they have not identified possible culprits. Richard Harris NPR News. Several protesters linked to the Occupy Wall Street movement are under arrest in South Carolina Charleston Police detained the group overnight in Merrion Square after warning they

would arrest anyone attempting to camp out in the park. A similar standoff in other major U.S. cities has led to numerous protests and arrests since the movement against corporate excess and income inequality began two months ago. All the U.S. major stock indexes down more than 1 percent at last check with the Dow falling 165 points. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News. Support for NPR comes from Cabot creamery cooperative makers of naturally age Vermont cheddar cheese and offering recipes stories and programs for schools at Cabot cheese dot co-op. Good afternoon. I'm Kelly Crossley. With Thanksgiving only a day away we are replaying a conversation that we broadcast earlier this year. The focus was on a slice of Native American history American history and Harvard's history and how the three all converged in both literature

and in real life. We began the conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning writer Geraldine Brooks. Her latest book is Caleb's Crossing which is a work of fiction based on the real life Native American Caleb chesty amok. He was the first American Indian to graduate from Harvard. Geraldine Brooks thank you for joining us today. Hi Kelly great to be with you. Your book is called Caleb's Crossing and the Caleb in the novels. The title refers to the first Native American Graduate. He graduated in 16 65. How do you come to know about him. It was from materials prepared by the Wampanoag tribe here on Martha's Vineyard. When I first moved here I was very interested to learn more about the tribe and the tribe and made a wonderful map of the island with the Native American place names and notations of historical significance. And one of the notations said birthplace of Caleb the first Native

American graduate and I expected to see 1965 because that fit with what I knew about the civil rights movement and the resurgence of Native American political activism. And I had to sort of blink twice to read 60 in 65 and made it. My mind was just filled with questions about. How that had come to be at such an early point in the English colonise ation of Massachusetts. Now we should say that your arse Trillian native Australian which is why you're learning you would have to learn about the American civil rights movement. You did not necessarily experience it from that perspective. From the vantage point of being here and you in the early part of your career were a journalist which I am guessing stood you in huge stead as you tried to piece together these really tiny meticulous details about not just Caleb's life because so little is known about him but also about the

community from which he came. I wonder if you'd talk about that community on Martha's Vineyard a bit. Yeah well the community where amazing custody ends of that culture and heritage. Even the pressures on them of the centuries to assimilate and to leave behind charity they manage to. Treasure and pass down the traditions in story and I tried today has a wonderful young leadership and they're really absolutely rich source of information on everything to do with the old life ways of the tribe and the belief systems. And of course Caleb is a very very treasured member of the tribe and not perhaps as well-known as he should be in the wider world and that was something

that really intrigued me that this amazing achievement of this young intellectual because in those days you had to be fluent in Latin to matriculate to Harvard because all instruction was created in Latin. So this young man had grown up and in his own language and culture and learned English and Latin and Greek and took his place with a Puritan colonial elate. And I was very intrigued by that story. And the way that you tell the story to give to lead us to all the details of his life is through your main character the narrator Bethia Mayfield Caleb was a real person you based your story on him but Bethia Mayfield is fictional and she's representative of the people who lived in that English colony on Martha's Vineyard and also of women who lived during that time. Talk a little bit about Bethia. Yeah well I'd always wondered why the English came his SO. Well a sixth in 41 is when

the first group of English settlers came to the island and I thought what would you do. That why would you at such a precarious time put seven miles of treacherous ocean currents between yourself and the mainland. Because heaven knows it's inconvenient enough living here even today. But it turned out that this group came because they wanted to get out from under the thumb of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His his religious views having been born across the ocean on the winds of wanting freedom to worship didn't really want to advance it to anybody else once they got here and very intolerant of any kind of dissent or a difference of opinion. And so the people who came here wanted to do their own thing economically but also spiritually to a large extent. And so I imagined the daughter of the minister and I went. Usually when I'm trying to create a voice for a novel I read as much as I can in all journals and letters and I found it was slim pickings because Puritan

women were encouraged to learn to read but not to write necessarily. That was quite frowned upon because writing is a skill that you need to communicate with people outside of your family. And why would a Puritan Goodwife want to be doing that. So women didn't necessarily learn to write. And even if they had done they didn't get much time because the labor that was required to eke out an existence in that. Time and Place was extraordinary from before dawn till the last guttering candle at night. We don't have any women's journals before 17:00 and Dasent interesting ones till 1752 which is a whole hundred years later than the time period that I'm interested in. So how did you know because you've managed to portray as you've mentioned the harsh life that all of the people living in the community

had to deal with but certainly the women carried a lot of the burden of that in terms of the work. And your story is fictional I want to keep reminding people but there's a great amount of historical detail about what the day was like what the chores were like. How did you come to know that since you had no writings from the women or a few and had to dig elsewhere. Yeah well there are you know I relied on some fantastic historians of the period who have looked into. What can be done about these things but also I found that a very rich source of women's voices was legal proceedings of one kind or another because that often be verbatim transcripts of the testimony and women were often being hauled into church for some kind of you know to account for crimes like being a scold which meant that you'd been overheard criticising a man in

public and that was a crime then it's likely that one still not on the books so we'd all be in a lot of difficulties there. Yeah you can hear women speaking for themselves in these settings. So that was very valuable to me. Give us a description of what a day was like just so people have a sense of what we're talking about. I mean you know some of us may think it's hard to work all day and go to the grocery store and go home but I got weary reading some of this. I have to tell you. Well true. I mean you had to did for yourself or you did without. Because these kind of pioneers really had to did a lot so if you imagine a woman gets up before dawn she goes to the well she draws water she splits the baboons for the fire she sets the fires she warms the water. She the previous night she would have made a sponge for the bread she makes the bread when the fire is hot enough she bakes the bread.

Then you know depending on whether she has children and not the churches are amplified by that all of us have to be made not only do they have to be made but the will has to be shown from the shape which she has to attend. Then it has to be made into the yawn and then that has to be listened into the cloth so you can just imagine there is never a moment when you don't have something you need to be doing you're raising the food you're gathering clouds gathering berries you know God and knowing you've got the chickens to deal with. It's just endless. So your task in this historical novel was to present us with the life of this English colony and also the life of Caleb and to bring Bethia and Caleb together to tell the story of how Caleb got from Martha's Vineyard to Harvard and. Everything that happened in between. And she's positioned as a young woman who wants more for herself even as she's doing all the chores that you've just designed but she has a little bit of a

of a fierce spirit. And so often it goes off by herself and it's in one of those going off by herself moments that she actually meets Caleb. And I wonder if you'd read that passage on page 33 about the the one of the first conversations and getting to know him. He was the youngest son of non-O So the knob Northcote son cam and his name list. In his tongue and mean something like. A hateful one. When he told me this I thought that my limited grasp of his language was defeating me for what manner of people would name a child. But when I asked his if his father indeed hated him he laughed at me. Names he said flow into one like a drink of cool water remain for a year or a season and then maybe give way to another more apt one. Who could tell how his present name had fallen upon him. Perhaps the giver of that name had meant to trick cheapie the devil God into thinking

him unloved and therefore leaving him alone. Well perhaps it had come upon him for cause I had found him hunting a lion he reminded me. When the practice of his clan was to hunt communally and them that values the common will above all he chose to be the one who stands separate. I thought that was an the way that you began to show us that he was going to be a little bit different. And maybe that's what gave him the stuff to withstand all that he had to withstand in order to make his way from Martha's Vineyard to Harvard as we've said. But before he got to Harvard he had to do so learn something on Martha on the Martha's Vineyard colony so Bethia becomes a way she knows his language. And they talk with each other and eventually he's taken under the wing of her father. There is also a theme of religion that runs through this even though this group of people broke off because they didn't like the harshness of the other group very

much. It's framed around God's will. Can you speak to that. Yeah it was interesting to try and put myself into that headspace when nothing happens. That isn't the direct intervention of God you know that just no such thing as bad luck. It's God is trying to speak to you. He's trying to tell you something and to create that the AA's mindset. I had to try and put myself into a believing Calvinism. You believe that you are smeared with sin from the moment you're born and your whole life is bent about the question of have you being selected to be among the damned or the saved. And their view was that nothing you could really do in life could change that. And what you were waiting for was a sign from God to tell you that you were one of the elect or one of the saved. And it was very stressful living with that horrible uncertainty. And so that's the challenge of the novelist that was one of two challenges of the

times that I'm writing about I think the other great challenge was to forget everything I knew about what was coming in the relations between the English invaders and the Indian inhabitants of this continent because at this point the dispossession and the dreadful bloodshed is still in the future. So for my characters a different future is still possible and I had to sort of decontaminate my modern mind from what I knew was coming. And to some large extent that is why maybe Caleb could make a crossing eventually in this particular specific time. Yeah I'm in it was that there are a lot of motivations. For why Harvard was seeking out young Native American students at this point and one of them was a cynical financial one because they had no money to support this college

the colony was very poor there are a bunch of idealistic and well-educated wealthy people this first group of MASH Massachusetts colonists. They didn't have a lot of practical skills so they you know didn't know a lot about farming and building so they built buildings that fell down and their crops failed as they tried to learn the new ways of doing it in this harsh climate than what they were used to and so they want they had high ambitions for Harvard they wanted it to give degrees that would be the equal of Oxford and Cambridge. And indeed the course was rigorous and broad. But the money was tight. English people were very interested in Christianizing the Indians and so that was one way you could get money and they had this game that they would bring in Indian youth and educate them and then send them back out to proselytize and convert because the English themselves weren't having much

success at it. And so that was the idea behind it. But it didn't actually work out that way. Right. More with Geraldine Brooks the writer and her new book Caleb's Crossing. When we come back after this break. I'm Kelly Crossley. Keep your dough on WGBH. WGBH programs exist because of you. And ten thousand villages now open in Boston's downtown crossing as well as Brookline Cambridge and Cranston. Ten thousand villages offers fairly traded handcrafted holiday home decor gifts and jewelry online at 10000 villages dot com. And scanner auctioneers and appraisers. People not infrequently will say hey I hear you guys into the AGP age. Steven Fletcher executive vice president it's benefiting us because WGBH brings so much to all of us. It's good for business but it's

bigger good and it's something that we're proud of. To learn how WGBH can benefit your business visit WGBH dot org slash sponsorship. On the next FRESH AIR creating the Muppets movie come back we talk with Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller who co-wrote the new Muppets movie. Segel also stars in it. Join us. This afternoon at 2:00 here on eighty nine point seven. WGBH. Time for. The holidays have a come and go. Too quickly this year. Take some time to savor the season with the Christmas Celtic social hosted by WGBH is Brian of Donovan this live show combines traditional carols and dance with lots of wonderful surprises.

Learn more and reserve two of the best seats in the house with a gift of one hundred fifty dollars online at WGBH dot org slash. Celtic. Is the nuclear plant in Plymouth. Join me this week for a power struggle. The future of the nuclear power plant here on eighty nine point seven. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just joining us we're replaying a conversation we had earlier this year with Geraldine Brooks. She's in a story and Pulitzer Prize winning novelist. We're discussing her new book Caleb's Crossing. It's set on colonial era Martha's Vineyard and among so many things this work is an exploration of the converging of native and immigrant cultures in 17th century America. Now before the break you were talking about the cynical reason that Harvard was interested in attracting Native American students.

They wanted to get students there for a financial reason because there were some philanthropists who were encouraging the education of Native American young people at that time at a higher level. But I wonder and this is a little bit of what comes out in your book is you talk about some of the tensions between those communities even though as you pointed out it's before the real blood shit. If they didn't think they were going to be that many people that were going to be equipped to go to Harvard in the end because it was such a strenuous thing to get in. It certainly was really. You know you had to be of very serious intellectual and very well-prepared So there are a couple of prep schools even at this early stage to get the young men and boys really they were quite young they're usually 14 when I matriculated to Harvard although somewhere a little older than that you Latin had to be perfect you had to be able to fluently

express yourself and understand aurally and in writing and you had to know some elementary Greek as well and you would be tested on this by what was the equivalent of the president of Harvard himself would you would do the examining before you could be admitted. And just to be clear we're talking about someone growing up with his native tongue and it really was his there were no women here to be considered. But you know so he's growing up in his native tongue and now he's got to learn English and Greek and Latin at a high level that's that's exactly you know it was a lot. And a number of young Native Americans got over that bar there were quite a number who matriculated to Harvard. But only Caleb and his fellow venue Joel can this actually graduated or at least completed the requirements for

graduation like in the US. A tragic fate befell him on his way back to actually receive his degree which is why he received it possumus Lee this year. The Harvard commencement exercises. I wonder if you would read from page 240 one which gives a little sense of how Caleb and Joel were received when they finally made their way to Harvard and they've demonstrated that they're equipped to go to the school. But you get a sense of how they're being regarded here. Caleb stood gave a slight bow and Chauncey raised a hand. A moment if you please. I should say lest you be in any doubt that we are glad to have you here. I am sure there will be difficulties small and large as you go forward but you must not

think you are welcome. Truly you are more than welcome. You are necessary. I had begun to think this day would never come. I rejoice in it. It will give satisfaction to Ana benefactors in London. Now send in the others. So the other lad and we will know if he is as well fitted as you are. You're listening to eighty nine point seven WGBH and online at WGBH dot org. I'm Kelly Crossley. I'm speaking with historian and Pulitzer Prize winning writer Geraldine Brooks. We're talking about her latest book Caleb's Crossing. Now just so people are know even though there were there was no of the aggressive bloodshed as you point to there we're going to get to later pass the history of it but it had been there had been a terrible massacre of the people. But that was an isolated case. And I. I don't want to say there was none but the enormity of what

was to happen in times of expulsion and dispossession and and just wanton killing was still in the future. The reason I raise that is that OK so now you have the professors acknowledging that these two young Native Americans have the stuff to be at the Harvard Indian college and by the way was part of the college but it is a separate building. It was the Dhamma Taare actually and they attended the same classes as the English students. Exactly. And however the socialization between the students was really will or none are quite awkward because there was still from the students who were here and you you know everybody must know that they're all young white men. They're unaccustomed to going to class with Native Americans. So it was really quite uncomfortable I wonder

if you'd read from page beginning on page to 58 to give a sense of what they had to deal with when they came to the Harvard Indian college. I want to just say before I read that this is a hypothesis based on the fact that when I went and looked for the existing letters of Caleb and Joel's classmates thinking that they would have remarked on the fact that they had Indians in school with them. There's nothing I couldn't find one single mention of these two guys and so my hypothesis led me into directions that one was either that I was so familiar. By the time they'd been through prep school I was so assimilated as to be unremarkable to their fellow students but I found that improbable so I then given the prejudices that Puritans nurtured to wards. Anybody other than themselves I thought maybe they did live quite isolated from the

English students. So I'm not sure that 258 is is the passage that you had in mind. Oh it starts on their first months at the college. The other students bond it was not an overt shunning such as one could have described and chastised and thereby put an end to rather. It was that their fellow scholars did nothing to make them welcome and instead contrived an array of small slights such as leaving no place for them to sit upon the films in the hall and never addressing a remark to either one at dinner or during the brief recreations in the ad. Somehow I do not know what means were used. It was made plain that they were not welcome to join in the hour of fellowship around the fire off to supper but were expected to retreat to their cheerless room in the Indian College where the large printing press occupied what might have been a pleasant hall and that printing press.

Geraldine Brooks. It has a specific location in the yard at Harvard. There's been some archeological digging looking for artifacts from the colonial era and specific to the Indian college which helps to underscore a lot of the work that you've already done here in the book. Did you know about a lot of the archaeological digs and some of what they had turned up there in that process as you wrote this book. Yes very lucky for me Harvard was really embracing this period of its history right at the time I started my research so I was able to take part in that dig which was actually aimed at locating the Indian college because that had been lost to to record keeping nobody even knew where this building had stood. And so for the first couple of digs they were off by you know some distance and the last time the day it was open they actually located the foundations. And so now this year the dig is in progress again and they're able to go right to the 17th century level

and hopefully we will find out much more about the lives of these remarkable young scholars but some things that have come out of the dig pieces of Tayac from that printing press. And they've been matched up with the type in the very first Bible printed on the American continent which was actually in the Wampanoag language. Wow. I am amazed. I have to say reading your book I didn't know a thing about Caleb until as it happens a year ago when Dr. Alan counter came to speak to us about the portraiture Project at Harvard identifying portraits of distinguished minorities to hang on Harvard's walls. He's director of the Harvard foundation for intercultural and race relations. And here's a little bit of what he had to say about the portrait that they commissioned for Caleb.

We began to research and study the images together of types faces of wampum logs and the traditional clothing. We went back to the original Native American Indian college at Harvard. We recreated much of this in portraiture and we came up with a magnificent portrait of Caleb took and it turns out that now that portrait hangs in Annenberg hall the freshman dining hall along with other magnificent portraits of again largely white males but portraits that represent Harvard's past. Geraldine Brooks a lot of people are going to come to know this is street through your imaginations based on the true history. Are you surprised that in 2011 there really wasn't much attention about this very important history. We heard from Alan counter talking about the portraiture project and now your book. But prior to that I have to say I did know it.

Yeah I think it's a it's a story that that should be told. And you know I hope that my my book you know won't be the last word on this subject obviously this is the Wampanoags story to tell and I think to have the story from a Native American perspective would be a marvelous thing I've tried to tell it through English eyes creating two characters in Caleb and the thought of two marginalized people in a society because of his race and she because of her agenda. And they have nothing in common on the surface but they do share this for knowledge and the desire to pursue it no matter what the costs to themselves. And so you know that's just one way of trying to look at this story and there must be many many others and. I sort of hope that historical fiction in a way is is if you like the gateway drug to serious history and people who are intrigued by the storytelling will then go and dig

deeper and you know look into sources to find out more. Do you think that historical novelists you know have a responsibility to get the facts right. You can imagine that you know a character like you can imagine certain other circumstances but but those basic facts for the very reasons that you've stated it is the gateway into other history and it seems to me that there's there's a weight that you must carry as you do this work. Look I feel that very much and that's why I always have an after would in my novels that sets the known facts so that it read it's very clear to readers where the facts and an imagination begins. I think that that's you know the only responsible way to go forward. What I look for in choosing a subject for a novel is a fascinating. Nugget from the historical record

that's incomplete. If Caleb had kept a journal every day then it wouldn't be a job for me. It would be a job for a narrative historian. But because we know tragically so very little of what it was like for this young man. I feel like there's a void there and even I know that there are a lot of questions about appropriating native culture and so much has been appropriated in appropriately. I must say I also believe that the act of trying to empathize can never be a mistake that if you can put yourself into somebody else's shoes if you can try and feel with their heart then that if it isn't to be despised. And that's what I try to do in my fiction. How does it feel. Because as I mentioned you were a journalist in the early part of your career to come across these bits of information just

emotionally and to realize wow I know if I didn't know it and I'm pretty involved and you're actually living on the island where Caleb made his journey and then to be able to piece it all together to tell a story that's really wholly unknown by many many folks. You know it's it's exciting and it's a little. Troubling because you have this much prejudice you know you can't sugarcoat this period. And because I'm trying to keep in the voice of the period my character has views and expresses himself in ways that are very derogatory. And she has quite a journey to make in her life as it's recounted in the book from her position of prejudice from her position of English of a waning arrogance imperial ready to realize that she doesn't know everything and that there is another way of looking at the world. And she's quite attracted to that.

So her journey is a kind of a crossing to as Caleb and as her world she very much and his his and what she finds that shakes her beliefs to that will. What do you. What do you get out of being a novelist a fictional writer that you know in doing this kind of work that you did would never happen for you as a journalist because you're using a lot of those skills to pieces together as I've said. And I was just curious about why you chose to go toward fiction. You could have done this story. In a nonfiction narrative way and your excellent writing skills we still would have had a gateway drug I can assure anybody listening. Well I respectfully disagree with that it would have been a very short book. You know we can tell that the factual record of Caleb and I fear pages unfortunately. To tell the story it was necessary to take a

huge imaginative leap but I think that the difference between being a fiction writer and being a journalist a journalist and I loved being a journalist I did it for a decade and a half and I loved every step I took. Doing the first rough draft of modern history if you like. The difference is when you don't know it. As a journalist you have to stop. That's it period. You know that's the end of the story. As a novelist you follow the line of history as far as it leads you. And when the facts run out and the voices fall silent then you take the swan dive into imagination. And it's a very exhilarating experience. You mentioned both of the main characters had a crossing of some sort. They were different from each other. A must there be a crossing if there is a bringing together of. Of native and immigrant communities must there be a crossing of some sort.

I think there's a crossing every time one human being tries to know another human being. You have to. Believe I think as James Baldwin put it so eloquently when he was different. Defending his his old friend William Styron who'd come under attack from African-Americans for presuming to imagine his way into the head of Nat the leader of the Tidewater slave rebellion. And if you remember a lot of African-American writers took great exception to a southern white man writing that book. I do a man I took took Stier and to the woodshed quite severely and and it was James Baldwin who came to his defense and he said something that's really stuck with me he said each of us helplessly and forever contains the other. Male and female. Black and white. White in black. We are part of each other.

And that I guess is what emboldened me. To have the chutzpah to try and imagine lives that is a very different from my own. Well this is a beautiful tale based on history that we should know just as certainly as New Englanders but certainly as Americans and I have to say I was engrossed in it from the first page for many reasons. I have a love of history but also the writing is beautiful. So congratulations to you for this work. Well thank you so much Kelly. I'm Kelly Crossley. We've been talking about Caleb's Crossing. A new book by my guest Pulitzer Prize winning writer Geraldine Brooks Caleb's Crossing was inspired by the real life story of Caleb chesty a mock a member of the Wampanoags tribe of Martha's Vineyard. He was the first American Indian to graduate from Harvard. Up next we mark Harvard's three hundred seventy fifth anniversary with a look at its relationship with Native American students. We'll be back after this break. Stay

with us. This program is on WGBH thanks to you. And Merrimack Repertory Theatre presenting the ultimate Christmas show abridged starring the Reduced Shakespeare Company through December 18th. For more information you can visit Merrimack Rapp dot org. And New England Subaru featuring the 2012 all wheel drive Subaru Outback recipient of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Award. Dealer listing at New England Subaru dot com. And Nova explaining the brave new theory that our universe may not be unique but just one in an endless multiverse. Explore the fabric of the cosmos universe or multiverse tonight at 9:00 on WGBH too. I'm Marco Werman. Your eyes the world is people people are saying elections are not

going to solve the problem. Egypt is deeply mired in right now. The world is ideas. If that election is not held in a few days Egypt is going to become like a spaceship that has no more fuel and it's going to drift into space and we don't know where it's going. Join us and hear the World coming up at 3:00 here on eighty nine point seven WGBH. What celing refers to several related traditions including the toasting of friends and loved ones to good health with a cup of hot mulled cider. Yes it's just one of many centuries old traditions you can partake in during our holiday tasting event here at the WGBH studios on Thursday night December 1st from 6 to 8. Tickets are $30 with a discount for WGBH members visit WGBH dot org slash box office insights ideas and opinions about the issues rooted here in Boston. Kendall Square is the densest hub of innovation and entrepreneurial investment in the

country. Local issues local talk Boston Public Radio. Good afternoon. I'm Kelly Crossley. With Thanksgiving only a day away we're replaying a show we did earlier this month that looked at the intersection of Native American history American history and Harvard's history. We just played a conversation with writer Geraldine Brooks about her new book Caleb's Crossing which was inspired by the life of Caleb chesty a mock a member of the Wampanoags tribe of Martha's Vineyard. He was also the first American Indian to graduate from Harvard. That was back in the 17th century. We then looked at the 21st century relationship between Harvard University and Native Americans with Tio Rey T-Ray is a senior at Harvard College and the president of Native Americans at Harvard College. I am dying to know if you knew anything about the history of Native Americans at Harvard before you applied.

Before I applied I actually had no idea about the Indian college or Caleb or Harvard's history with local New England natives. Wow how did you come to learn about it. So actually after I was admitted I visited for our prospective students weekend and I was hosted by a native student who was an archaeologist and who was involved with the Harvard yard archaeology project from the beginning when it started again in 2005. And she kind of introduced me to the history of the Indian college. And once I heard that I was basically hooked. Well let's talk a little bit about that Archaeological Project that people may not know about it's happening right in Harvard Yard right. Correct. So it's right in the middle of the art it's incredibly difficult to miss. It's right in the middle of all these freshman dormitories. And I was involved in the dig my sophomore fall in 2009. Basically we open up the yard and excavate and find all these artifacts that are telling us about the legacy. Students at Harvard from the very beginning.

And of course the first graduate was Caleb 16 65 which nobody can believe in. You know then you fast forward so many years before you get to Native students in the 20th century even though the 21st as yourself now. Does that seem surprising to you. Given the history of that Harvard has with having no minority students at all. I wasn't shocked to hear that there wasn't a resurgence of native students until the 1970s and many more minority students are at Harvard now. But I was very very shocked to find out that the first minority graduate of Harvard first native graduate of Harvard happened way back in the 60s hundreds. Last year I learned about him about Caleb because of the Harvard Foundation's portraiture project and they honored Caleb as the first Native American Graduate at Harvard by commissioning an artist to do a portrait of him and then have it hang in the freshman dining hall. I wonder if

you've seen students look at their portrait and wonder who he is. Yes so actually I was there for the hanging which was beautiful dedication ceremony. And shortly thereafter I didn't go back into the dining hall because it's a freshman dining hall. So I was actually there during finals period last semester and I heard someone talking about it just wondering why that portrait is different than the others. Not simply because it's a minority student versus all of the students all of the portraits of. Individuals on the walls but also the frame is very different. It's more of a style that complements the photograph it's very large. And I was very happy to be able to tell them why that portrait was there and to be able to inform them a little bit about Harvard's history. Now how do you feel as a Native American student about to graduate. Last year Tiffany Smalley graduated and much was made of that and explain why.

Well Tiffany's graduation was amazing because she is the first to graduate from the undergraduate college since Kaleb. So there have been graduates from other Harvard schools but not Harvard College. And so that was an amazing. An amazing amazing commemoration. And she also had the opportunity to accept the degree that he received after his tragedy. He was unable to actually graduate and so his posthumous degree was a wonderful commemoration for Harvard's three hundred seventy fifth commencement and her graduation just marked a wonderful turning point. So we're talking 16 65 for Kayla and 2010 for Tiffany Smalley. That's amazing. It was definitely amazing. And we should note that Joel would have graduated with Caleb but.

But he was killed before he could graduate so that didn't happen. And Joel was the second Native American student who had passed this grueling learning of the Greek in the Latin and all of that that you had to do at that time in order to be able to enter into Harvard College. So now that you've been digging and finding artifacts relative to the Harvard Indian college how do you feel about that as someone who's a part of a spectrum of Native American history. Well for me I've been mentally involved in this project since I was a sophomore so I think it's it's very very interesting to see the perceptions that the Harvard community itself has about this history. So being able to go out and tell people who are simply walking by walking out of their own dorm room hey look this is a part of history that's been happening. There have been natives here at Harvard since the very beginning basically and we're here

now. And for me it was wonderful to be able to locate the first you know semblances of the foundation in 2009. And we commemorated the 300 60th anniversary of Harvard's charter which calls for the education of Indian and English youth with a traditional want a weed 2 that we put at the site of the excavation after it was closed in the spring. So for me it's just been a very personal experience as well as public being able to get out the fact that natives exist here and continue to exist here and graduate from Harvard and Yale as you will in the spring. So you know in the hip hop parlance there's an expression. Represent. You know I wonder. Do you feel the weight of representing Native Americans as as one of the few students at Harvard. For me it's very situational and I think that a lot of native students who

go to Harvard now feel that way. Sometimes someone might even make a passing comment not out of any malicious intent but simply out of not knowing. And for me it's always great to be able to you know represent in that manner in situations where you're the only one who might actually know what they're talking about. But I think individuals who come to Harvard who are native always bring their perspective from where they're from where they've been. So there are some students who have lived on the reservation their entire life and are deeply culturally affiliated and they really do feel the weight of the responsibility of representing their nation here at Harvard and wherever they go. What's your background. To tell us about where were you from. How did you make your way to Harvard.

All right so my I grew up in Southern California a very small town southeast of San Diego. It is possible to very difficult to in the very little corner. And my family came there from New Mexico. So my mother's family is Navajo and they left the reservation in the 1950s. And my mother's family moved to San Diego and then moved down to El Centro California. So for me I've always grown up in a small town kind of isolated from the Navajo Nation. So it was a very difficult journey for me as far as getting back connected with my tribe connected with my clan even my extended family. So growing up in that small town not very many people go to college to begin with which is something that. People from rural areas all across the nation face. And it's and that's so that's why pretty much as I understand it the numbers

overall of Native American students in college not just at Harvard are are lower than they should be because there are some harsh to six about the dropout rate and Native American students in high school. I'm going to share that right. So there are plenty of challenges that native students face living on reservations whether it be poverty. No access to resources and all of these challenges that make it difficult to even finish high school let alone believe that you can attend a university anywhere. What do you see for yourself in the future when you graduate from Harvard. So I study archaeology and history of science. So what I would like to do is become involved in museum work was very near and dear to my heart is repatriation of objects so the Native American graves repatriation Act was passed which facilitates the return of objects that were taken from native communities under certain

conditions. So I hope to continue working on that and being an advocate for ethical anthropological practices gelding broke so I wrote the book Caleb's Crossing about Harvard's first Native American Graduate quite clear that she's written a book that is actually fictionalized some parts of it imagine and from the English viewpoint and she says there's plenty of room to tell the story about Caleb from the native perspective. What would you like to see that and are you going be the one to write that. Well hopefully in my ideal world it would be a want in OG scholar who would be able to really write from this perspective. And what's amazing to me is all of the recent work that's really been going on in the community the language revitalisation project has been an amazing amazing resource for so many people in the New England area who are trying to get back all of this legacy that was lost but was

preserved through the actions of native students in the time of the Indian college who helped out with the printing press in translating the Bible to wampum dog. So I would love it if Caleb story could be told from perhaps even one of his descendants as near as possible. So when people look at Harvard now what do you want them to see in a holistic way that includes this history. Well I would love for people to understand that. Harvard students no matter what their background are are not stereotypical and any sense of the word. First of all so I've met so many wonderful people and I would love it if people would understand that Harvard really is multicultural and that there are all sorts of communities that exist at Harvard that are thriving and doing well and lots of stories to tell. Thank you so much for helping us acknowledge Harvard's 370 fifth anniversary in an exciting way.

Thank you. We've been talking about Harvard and its relationship with Native Americans over the centuries. I've been speaking with to your right to your right is a senior at Harvard College and the president of Native Americans at Harvard College. Today's show was engineered by Jane Finn and Alan Magnus. And produced by Chelsea murderers and Abby Ruzicka we're a production of WGBH Boston Public Radio.