research
Master's Thesis
Drawing Identities: An Ethnography of Indigenous Comic Book Creators
This research examines the experiences of Indigenous comic creators when making comic books, and I aim to investigate the individual and communal motivations for creating comics. Representations of Indigenous characters and storylines have primarily been told through a white lens in mainstream comics. Within the past five years, this trend has shifted with increased academic and public attention on Indigenous comic books and the rise of comic conventions like Indigenous Pop X. I argue that these comics are acts of decolonization and self-determination where creators use comics as educational tools and as a form of cultural preservation by documenting Indigenous histories, languages, and perspectives. The data was captured through participant observation at Indigenous Pop X and semi-structured interviews with six self-identified Indigenous comic book creators. These experiences were categorized with thematic and narrative analysis, and analyzed through the frameworks of postmodernism, decolonizing theories, and Tribal Critical Race theory.
Bachelor's Thesis
Alcatraz: Holding the Rock to Reshape Indian Identity
Gigantic Disclaimer
I wrote this in 2012 and have not revisited or edited it since finding it in August 2020, and this is that copy. It's not my final copy but a draft of it. I plan on writing a blog post about writing it then, my thoughts on it now, and writing a revised version. Enjoy this extremely raw copy. It serves as a reminder that we all have to start somewhere.
Presentations
When the Goode Family is not so Good: Racism Masked as White Liberalism
The election of Barrack Obama in 2008 spurred Americans to believe we had entered into a post-racial society, a society that no longer saw race with the first-ever African American president. Shortly after the election in 2009, Mike Judge premiered his animated series The Goode Family which followed the lives of
an environmentally friendly, vegan, and politically correct family trying to "do the right thing". Ultimately the show was not successful and only ran for one season. However, similar to the 2006 movie Idiocracy, another Mike Judge production, it was ahead of its time in societal critiques of capitalism and racism.
This context is necessary to the analysis of this paper, to understand both the political climate of the time of its creation and its placement among other socially engaged sitcoms at the time. The premiere of The Goode Family coincides with the final year of one of Judge’s other well-known animated sitcoms, King of the Hill. A very successful satirical sitcom known for its witty critiques of liberalism as well as conservatism.
This paper will provide an overview of the series and then turn its attention to the episode Helen’s Back to exemplify how the series critiques at white liberalism yet the characters’ assertions of “colorblindness” lends to their racist actions. I will dissect the episode and place it within larger trends of hipster racism and political correctness as a form of racism within academic research and pop culture.
An Indigenous Superhero’s Journey: A Comparative Study of The Heroes and Hero Twins
Where is a superhero without their origin story? What happens to a superhero story when it is told through two different origin stories? Through this paper, I will be using a comparative study of two Indigenous comic book superheroes to answer the questions above. The comic books in question are 2018’s The Heroes by Keith Jim (Navajo) and 2016’s Hero Twins by Dale Ray Deforest (Navajo). Both are based on the Navajo or Diné origin story of twins Born for Water and Monster Slayer, the origins of their powers, and the journeys they take. While Jim’s comic is a conventional telling of the story, Deforest transplants the story into a more contemporary setting.
The comics are not in competition with one another for placement as canon but work together to provide a fuller picture of the Navajo creation story and what it means to be an Indigenous superhero. While not classically considered to be superheroes, I consider the twins to be part of the pantheon of Indigenous superheroes. In this paper, I discuss what it means to be an Indigenous superhero, their characteristics, and their relationship to American superheroes. These themes will be explored through the case study of The Heroes and Hero Twins. The data for this original research was captured through semi-structured interviews and visual analysis of the comics and analyzed with decolonizing theories and Tribal Critical Race theory.
cv / resume
If you are interested in a more extensive history of my work, feel free to download my CV or resume.