My Moccasins, Me & NYC

My boyfriend and I have taken a liking to exploring cities on Turtle Island. We are saving for a bigger trip - we're thinking a Euro-holiday - but we needed something to get us through the winter months. Last week, we toyed with the idea of going to New York on Monday, booked on Thursday, and were on a train through the Adirondacks on Friday.

We settled into our hotel (the Hilton in the Financial District), which had a view of the re-building of the World Trade Centre.


We knew we only had 2 days, and I don't think we could have squeezed more into our first day if we tried: breakfast in Time Square; a three hour jaunt through the Met (which, as it turns out, wasn't enough); dessert for lunch on 5th Avenue; Columbia University; shopping in SoHo; and pizza for dinner at Lombardi's, one of five spots vying for the best pizza in NYC.


We got to the hotel by 9, plopped down on the luxe bed, and couldn't get up.

The next day we, once again, were on the train to Time Square. We saw a hockey game in the legendary Madison Square Garden. Then, we figured we would fit in one more museum. Can you guess which one? The National Museum of the American Indian.


Although their main exhibit, Infinity of Nations, was cool (above), I preferred the modern art works of Carl Beam. So much so that I excitedly skipped over to the next room when I saw a sneak peek, inadvertently skipping the Woodlands--which, apparently, means me--section. And, as long as I'm being honest, I held a bit of a grudge after not finding "Algonquin" amongst the names of tribes surrounding the Infinity of Nations sign. An afternoon at Century 21, resulting in a DVF sweater and Tory Burch blouse, capped off a great day.

(I'll now skip over the part where we ended up at TGI Friday's for dinner, eating crappy expensive food, and getting depressed while adding up all the money we'd spent. Ooops, there it is.)

While NYC was a lot of fun (I can't wait to go to MoMA and back to Century 21), of all the cities we've visited, our hearts are still in Boston...

Role Models

Forget American Idol (although I am somewhat following it!), today I want to talk "Academic Idol"!

Yes, I'm a nerd. I spent two days last week at a workshop for Native youth (all women and girls) on "Values and Ethics in the Aboriginal Workplace." In addition to the usual where you're from, what you study, where you work, etc. in our round of introductions we were asked to name someone we look to as a role model.

Many mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers we named, as were Elijah Harper, Metis artist Jaime Koebel, and even a few politicians (no one from within the workplace, ironically).

When the line rolled around to me, I could feel my breath start to shorten a little. It seems no matter how many times I speak in front of a crowd, I always have at least a tinge of anxiety.

"My name is Mallory Whiteduck, I'm from Kitigan Zibi and I work at the university," I started, "and I'm having a hard time narrowing it down to just one role model. I guess I should consider myself lucky in that way."

I went on to explain how I admired my younger brother as someone who has strong values and a solid ethical foundation. But in reality, I have so many role models. I draw from numerous different people as I try to live a good life. My mom, my grandmothers and grandfathers, R.J., cousins, friends, my director, co-workers...!

But in the world of Native American literary theory (told you I was a nerd) and the scholarly Native world in general, Lisa Brooks is my academic idol.

[Rewind to Christmas Eve]

R.J. and I sit in his car after leaving my aunt's house, and he hands me a poorly wrapped present. I smile. I wasn't expecting much considering he's taken a year to return to academia. I excitedly tear it open to reveal Lisa Brooks's The Common Pot: The Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast.


Inside the book was a note that said he had emailed Lisa Brooks to invite her to a lunch with me in Boston (she's at Harvard) paid by him. I grinned form ear to ear at the thoughtfulness of the gift.

"She hasn't emailed back yet," he went on to explain. "But I only sent it a few days ago."

The holidays crept by without any updates. I was almost afraid to ask for any because I knew the answer would be no, she hasn't yet responded.

She's a Harvard professor, I rationalized, entering into self-preservation mode. I'm sure she doesn't have time for a lunch with some random "fan."

But after we came back home, got back to work and returned to some semblance of post-holiday reality, a message popped up in my inbox with the subject line "FWD: Inspirational Student for Christmas." R.J. had forwarded a response from Lisa Brooks where she not only happily accepted the invitation to lunch, but offered to set up a tour of Harvard's Native American Program and even invited us to share a meal with her husband and daughter at their home outside of Boston.

We returned from the trip on February 20 (my birthday!) and I'm still reeling with energy, excitement and inspiration.

To End a Perfect Sunday, or My Turn to Organic

Yesterday my day ended with some - how shall I put this? - trauma.

Let me preface this by saying I had a wonderful Sunday. One of those Sundays that is so relaxing you wish you could have another on Monday. My Sunday included waking up to my boyfriend, R.J.'s, omellete with green peppers, mushrooms, onions, ham and mozzarella cheese; doing my nails in sparkly hot pink while catching bits of Micheal Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story' and flipping through People magazine; a run on my treadmill; and dinner at my parents'.

When I returned home to my apartment after a rez-style dinner (hamburger la sauce padakan), I read the first 15 pages of a new book (Love in the Time of Cholera) and chatted with my friend, Katie, whose wedding reception I'll be attending in the Dominican Republic next week (eeek!!!). As it neared 10 o'clock, I wondered, should I go to bed and continue to read or see if anything is on T.V.? Not surprisingly, the television won. (Sidenote: one of the resolves I made this weekend was to temper my horrible T.V. habit - and I mean horrible as I count myself among those addicted to reality garbage - with more reading, music and doing things with my hands.)

Just check the usual stations and go to bed if nothing's on, I told myself. I flipped through the first few channels and found that 'Food, Inc.', a documentary I knew to be abuzz, was on CBC's 'The Passionate Eye.'

Perfect, I thought, pleased that my T.V. time this Sunday evening promised to be educational.

Then came the trauma.

For anyone who hasn't heard of 'Food, Inc.', it's an Academy Award-nominated documentary about the fast food and supermarket industries and what they have done to farming in the U.S. It combines things like state conspiracy, a tragic story of a two-year-old who died from e-coli and stomach-turning slaughterhouse scenes.

Not necessarily the kind of way you want to end a perfect Sunday.

Nonetheless, I am so glad I watched it. It was truly an eye opener for me. Sure, I knew the statement "grass-fed beef is good for you" to be true, but I never really understood the meaning behind it. (In other words, I had no clue whether cows were supposed to be eating grass, corn or hay!) I had heard others reference how sickly and poorly kept KFC chickens are, but I'd never seen any video or read any article for myself.

Now I am concerned about the food I eat and, simply enough, I want to know what goes into it. I am concerned for my heath and R.J.'s, the health of the family we will someday have and the state of the western world's reliance on corporate meat. A viel has been lifted and I can't go on eating whatever food is quick, easy and time-saving (as I learned when I found myself picking pieces of chicken out of my microwavable BBQ chicken and rice "meal").

I am going to start (and this is a huge leap for me) by not eating beef unless it's grass-fed or chicken unless it's grain-fed. I am also going to buy more organic and check out Ottawa's Organic Farmer's Market, open year-round on Saturdays. And, possibly most importantly, I am going to have to stop being lazy and get cooking!

As Anishinabekwe, I am hoping that our ancestors' connection to the food we ate will have a stronger pull than the inevitable supermarket/fast food attempts to win back my loyalty.

Stay tuned...