美国国家公共电台 NPR In 'Heart Berries,' An Indigenous Woman's Chaotic Coming-Of-Age

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Terese Marie Mailhot started her new memoir¹ "Heart Berries" while she was in a mental institution, where she committed herself after a breakdown². The pages bleed with the pain of mental illness, substance abuse and her family history on an Indian reservation in British Columbia. She joins us now from Spokane to talk about her work and her life. Welcome to the program.

TERESE MARIE MAILHOT: Hi. Thank you for having me.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: There is so much in this book. I'd like to start with the history of your family the way that you do. Your grandmother was sent to a residential³ school that took Indigenous⁴ children away from their parents to be brought up by nuns⁵. And you write, (reading) Indians froze trying to run away. And many starved nuns and priests ran out of places to put the bones. So they built us into the walls of new boarding schools.

It's chilling imagery. Can you tell me about that history?

MAILHOT: Yeah. As I was trying to form my own ideas about the residential school experience and how that related to the turmoil⁶ I was experiencing and my mental health issues, I considered intergenerational trauma⁷ and what my grandmother went through as a native woman being taken away from her family and raised in a residential school. And there were so many horrific stories that it was impossible to narrow it down to just a few or try to specify⁸. So I just tried to relate generally what a horror that must have been for so many.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Most of this book is written to what we understand to be a lover at the time who you're now married to. Casey is white.

MAILHOT: Yeah.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And I think this is echoed many times in this book that, somehow, the violence of what you've experienced means that you can never be known or truly understood. Is that what you were trying to get at?

MAILHOT: Yeah. I think it's that, sometimes, I'll be talking to my husband about something small, about how I open the door at a coffee shop and, you know, a white woman walked through it. And I thought, is that because I'm Indigenous, or did she just not see me, or am I invisible? And I'm thinking of a lot of different things. And he's not - all he sees is me kind of grimacing⁹ at somebody who's relatively¹⁰ polite and well-mannered. So relating where I come from, where my mother talked about going to school and having rocks thrown at her and being called a dirty squaw, having to relate that's where I come from - and it's how I exist in the world today. And I try not to be burdened by that. But it's really difficult. And it's been a journey for him to kind of see it for himself.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Tell me about Casey.

MAILHOT: Casey - I'm still so in love with him. I really - it's really difficult to articulate that the book started as an epistolary thing to him, you know, to try to get him to understand my experiences as an Indigenous woman and that I might appear crazy to him. But I'm not crazy. There's a lot of things that I felt like I had to validate¹¹ to him. And by the end of it, I realize it's not really about him at all. You know, it was about trying to articulate that to the world - that we might appear to have all of these stigmas¹² and stereotypes¹³, and we might be burdened by that. But I wanted to show the humanity of my character and who I am and not redeem¹⁴ myself but just show that we are people deserving of that space, you know?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And obviously, you were going through a very difficult time when you wrote this. And you were institutionalized. And you were grappling with mental illness. How has that informed your work - having to deal with that? I think you were diagnosed as bipolar, among other things.

MAILHOT: Yeah. Well, I feel the polarity just in my daily life. Like, I feel like I have a swinging heart, you know? And I'm driven by that. And I think, artistically¹⁵, it's done a lot of good. And in my real life, I think it's made my relationships more intense, even with my children. I think I love harder this way. But coping with the ups and downs has been a real challenge. And I feel like only in my 30s have I really begun to understand that I'm not bad because I'm ill. I am OK.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It seems like at this moment in particular, it's so vital to have Native American women's stories being told in their own words out in the world. And you write in the book about the duty as an Indian writer. What is that duty right now in your view?

MAILHOT: I think it's to reach our potentials as artists first and foremost. I think, you know, my work speaks to issues like murdered, missing indigenous women. And it's also giving humanity to a lot of the experiences women have where I'm from. You know, I wish I could walk into a library and see a book by someone from my experience. And I think that's important. But I also think we're cultivating art. And I think we owe that to ourselves right now. And we should be taking what's ours. It's such a joy for me. Yeah. I know it's so wrought¹⁶ with heavy material and content. But to me, there's nothing better than creating art, you know?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Terese Marie Mailhot's new memoir is "Heart Berries." Thank you so much.

MAILHOT: Thank you.

1 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

2 breakdown   

n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌

参考例句：

• She suffered a nervous breakdown.她患神经衰弱。
• The plane had a breakdown in the air,but it was fortunately removed by the ace pilot.飞机在空中发生了故障，但幸运的是被王牌驾驶员排除了。

3 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

4 indigenous   

adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的

参考例句：

• Each country has its own indigenous cultural tradition.每个国家都有自己本土的文化传统。
• Indians were the indigenous inhabitants of America.印第安人是美洲的土著居民。

5 nuns   

n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Ah Q had always had the greatest contempt for such people as little nuns. 小尼姑之流是阿Q本来视如草芥的。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Nuns are under vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. 修女须立誓保持清贫、贞洁、顺从。 来自辞典例句

6 turmoil   

n.骚乱，混乱，动乱

参考例句：

• His mind was in such a turmoil that he couldn't get to sleep.内心的纷扰使他无法入睡。
• The robbery put the village in a turmoil.抢劫使全村陷入混乱。

7 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

8 specify   

vt.指定，详细说明

参考例句：

• We should specify a time and a place for the meeting.我们应指定会议的时间和地点。
• Please specify what you will do.请你详述一下你将做什么。

9 grimacing   

v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• But then Boozer drove past Gasol for a rattling, grimacing slam dunk. 可布泽尔单吃家嫂，以一记强有力的扣篮将比分超出。 来自互联网
• The martyrdom of Archbishop Cranmer, said the don at last, grimacing with embarrassment. 最后那位老师尴尬地做个鬼脸，说，这是大主教克莱默的殉道士。 来自互联网

10 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

11 validate   

vt.（法律）使有效，使生效

参考例句：

• You need an official signature to validate the order.你要有正式的签字，这张汇票才能生效。
• In order to validate the agreement,both parties sign it.为使协议有效，双方在上面签了字。

12 stigmas   

n.耻辱的标记，瑕疵( stigma的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Wind may affect the set of fruit by desiccating the stigmas. 风可影响座果，因为风吹干了柱头。 来自辞典例句
• Monterey's transpiration of pistils and stigmas are lowest. Monterey的柱头和雌蕊的失水速率均较低。 来自互联网

13 stereotypes   

n.老套，模式化的见解，有老一套固定想法的人( stereotype的名词复数 )v.把…模式化，使成陈规( stereotype的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Such jokes tend to reinforce racial stereotypes. 这样的笑话容易渲染种族偏见。
• It makes me sick to read over such stereotypes devoid of content. 这种空洞无物的八股调，我看了就讨厌。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

14 redeem   

v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等）

参考例句：

• He had no way to redeem his furniture out of pawn.他无法赎回典当的家具。
• The eyes redeem the face from ugliness.这双眼睛弥补了他其貌不扬之缺陷。

15 artistically   

adv.艺术性地

参考例句：

• The book is beautifully printed and artistically bound. 这本书印刷精美，装帧高雅。
• The room is artistically decorated. 房间布置得很美观。

16 wrought   

v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的

参考例句：

• Events in Paris wrought a change in British opinion towards France and Germany.巴黎发生的事件改变了英国对法国和德国的看法。
• It's a walking stick with a gold head wrought in the form of a flower.那是一个金质花形包头的拐杖。