Writing Water, Writing Life: Silko as Environmental Activist

Abstract

Writing Water, Writing LifeSilko as Environmental Activist Christina Boyles (bio) As concerns regarding the earth’s water resources continue to grow, Indigenous communities are often thrust to the forefront of these conflicts. Protests at Standing Rock and the Tar Sands have highlighted the challenges they face when trying to access clean water. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Indigenous peoples are some of the hardest hit by government and corporate entities seeking to privatize water for profit. One of the communities most affected by water politics are the Indigenous peoples of Arizona and New Mexico, whose water supply is being drained, polluted, and rerouted due to corporate and government interests. The work of Leslie Marmon Silko, who is a member of the Laguna Pueblo of New Mexico, is mired in the concerns of her community, particularly issues of water scarcity. While Silko discusses the role of water in Native American communities in the Southwest in each of her works, those written post-1990—Almanac of the Dead, Sacred Water, Gardens in the Dunes, and Oceanstory—examine it in the greatest depth. These texts highlight the tension between imperial interests and Indigenous knowledge, focusing specifically on issues of water scarcity to demonstrate the need for an environmental ethos grounded in Indigenous practices. Since water allocation cannot be separated from either environmental or racial factors, Silko’s texts critique (eco)colonialism’s relationship to Native American communities and their water supply. In Almanac of the Dead, Silko discusses how large quantities of water are both used and contaminated by uranium mining, an act that has the greatest impact on the nearby Native American reservations. In Sacred Water, Silko presents a solution to water scarcity and contamination by advocating for sustainable irrigation, farming, and gardening practices. In Gardens in the Dunes, Silko addresses issues of population growth and landscaping [End Page 10] in the American Southwest, noting that current trends are detrimental to the water supply. Her most recent publication, an e-novella entitled Oceanstory, completes her discussion of water by drawing connections between colonialism and environmental degradation. Silko’s work directly challenges the settler logics inherent in the environmental movement for its investment in the narrative of Indigenous erasure. By focusing on the preservation of “pristine” landscapes—many of which are stolen Indigenous lands now operating under the guise of natural parks—environmentalists fail to address the ways in which climate change poses the greatest threat for marginalized groups, especially Native communities in the Southwest. Silko notes that “[t]hose who claim to love and protect the Mother Earth have to love all of her, even the places that are no longer pristine” (Yellow Woman 95). One way for activists to do this is by acknowledging the environmental conditions in many Native communities. Cultural studies scholar Andrea Smith notes that “ecofeminist thinkers do not adequately discuss the material conditions in which Indian people live, how these conditions affect non-Indians, and what strategies we can employ to stop the genocide of Indian people and end the destructive forms of resource development on Indian land” (30). In her work on Almanac of the Dead, Bridget O’Meara argues that “[a]n environmental movement that does not consistently and consciously foreground the relationship between the degradation of ecosystems and the violence against labor within gendered, racialized, and sexualized discourses and practices of capitalism merely serves and strengthens capital’s interests in (neo)colonial and (neo)imperial projects” (71). Silko provides an ethical approach to environmentalism in her novels both by highlighting the harm created by settler culture and by demonstrating the ways in which Indigenous knowledge promotes healthier ways of being for both people and the ecosystem. T. V. Reed terms Silko’s approach “decolonial environmental justice cultural studies” to emphasize the ways it challenges imperialist logics of economics, race, and the environment. Reed’s assessment provides a powerful foundation for many key components of Silko’s philosophy; this piece builds upon it by noting the interplay between Indigenous knowledge and decolonial projects. Decolonial environmental projects, often aligned with the “environmental justice” movement, address the needs of individuals “from an assortment of racial and social class backgrounds; they [End Page 11] are African, Latino, Asian, Native, and...