I am a storyteller who longs for the voices of my ancestors, whispers of wisdom. My Lakota Sioux name, Winona, in English, translates as “first-born daughter.” However, in the context of my mother’s travail, I was the last daughter to enter our family. Confused and curious, I struggled to make sense of the world and my place in it, hence my penchant for crafting stories that speak to universal themes of belonging, othering, continuance, strength, and resilience. My father once recounted a troubled marital history of separation, strife, and betrayal. Almost a decade later, he shared a continuation of that transformational interval---a passionate reconciliation resulting in the celebrated birth of another “firstborn daughter.”

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Hope and a new beginning, the renewing of a family story. And so it goes, the infinite struggle of flesh and spirit and arguments over who came first and who gets the last word. As Indian People, we embody the ongoing legacy of First Contact and Manifest Destiny, a story rife with struggle, encounters, betrayal, hope, and new beginnings.

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This is my legacy.

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I cannot separate myself from the bloodlines of my family story, the bones of my present-day experiences, and the sinew of my future connections. They are alternately relinquished, broken, and unraveled by my dynamic and contested identities. This is my story.