“So I feel in different ways, kind of connections to those places, because they know in some way, you know, I am again that amalgam of 1000s and 1000s of generations that have made me You know, people have died, have loved and lost to create me. And how do I honor that? How do I honor their lives moving forward? And so to learn more, to try and do better every day, to try and influence the community in impactful and positive ways. I think is is who I'd like to be and kind of selfishly I'd like to say that's who I am.” ‒ Clint Anderson

“I feel like that's how I do it because I'm like, I'm from my people. And I'm not going to deny them so that's why I'm going to say the stuff that I say in the way that I say.” ‒ Reid Gómez

“I want to start by saying whenever we have face to face conversations, or at least zoom face to face, part of it, the interchange, is always body language, not just words. So in interpreting my body language, you need to know I have Parkinson's, so a lot of times what appears to be random movement are random movements. Sometimes it appears like impatience, or, you know, it's just busy. But I am Melissa Tatum. I'm a law professor. But more than that, I'm a professor who works with graduate students, mostly doctoral students, because I love to learn from them. I learn as much from my students I think as they learn form me.” ‒ Melissa Tatum

“I self identify as Chicana. Not everyone in my family does, but I do. But that's a different story for a different time. Lots of different relationships to what it means to be of Mexican descent in the United States today. And that's, that's part of my story as well, lots of different understandings of, of that kind of heritage. But yes, and it's beautiful to be able to be in a space where you have a lot of generations of family, even if it's messy. And so that's what I'm bringing.” ‒ Anita Huizar-Hernández

Bojan Louis

Waiting on correct grammar/information before including.

“Every place is always attached to a model or a story. So there's some story associated with that place, whether it's specifically about the land, whether it's, you know, a legend associated with that place, or a mythology, or particular prominent person. So the students will also learn that story. And then within those larger stories, there's always some lesson to be learned.” ‒ Clint Anderson

“But John Trudell has this ‒ this is my favorite line. We are children of Earth. Who are they? I just like that. Some people come from the stars. Like the Pawnee they come from the stars. And I’m like yeah, who are they? They come from stars. Tell me who you are. I want to hear your story if you'll tell me.” ‒ Reid Gómez

“But by trying to be conscious that other people have a different relationship with land, and listening and hearing what they say about that relationship, helps me develop a better understanding of how those relationships work.” ‒ Melissa Tatum

“I mean, it's really all about like land and stories and space and time. So that particular project was about a con artist who was named James Reavis. And he decided that he was going to make up a Spanish land grant and then presented to the US Court of land claims to try to steal, like most of central Arizona and a small sliver of Mexico. So it would have an enormous amount of territory…but I was really interested in, you know, what does this mean that this man in the 1800s, would try to rewrite history? And like, what were the mechanics of that? And how did he get people to think about property ownership in this land that they were living on, in these wildly different ways? So what he did is he forged all these archives around the world in Spain, in Mexico, in the United States, to invent a person who was this baron of Arizona, and invent a whole lineage, and then take a woman who he then presented as the only living heiress to this, marry that woman and then claim this like whole fictitious land grant and story through her. And so he presented it in this very straightforward, chronological way; like first there was a baron, and he did this service to the Spanish crown, and then ‒ but the way that it was actually happening, was not at all like that, right? In terms of chronology, like there was just this guy who was sort of like a one off, forging these various archives making, up the story as he went along, adding to it, then you have also this woman who, you know, speaking of archives that are very limited and restricted, we don't know that much about, but was likely the daughter of an Indigenous woman and an Anglo man, but had been orphaned and presenting her as a Spaniard. And then when it comes out that this claim is all fictitious, and the way that the press reacts to her, racializes here, where at first she was this like, white, wealthy Spanish heir, how she was received at the court in Spain, and then she becomes, you know, all of these, like horrific racialized terms that are like extremely gendered, extremely racialized right? About where she came from, and who she was and then like describing her behavior in the in these ways.” ‒ Anita Huizar-Hernández

“If you care for the land, it cares for you. And like, you respect the land. You know, all these things have stories, all their little pieces have stories, you know, it's not just a plant, the plant has a whole sort of being and creation myth that how it came into being, and how it may be sustained something else and how it also is in relationship with all of us.” ‒ Bojan Louis

“And so by participating in that space, you are part of that culture in that place, and that space and that institution and that people in a respectful way. Right, you're able to honor that.” ‒ Clint Anderson

“And so this is also to me a theoretical problem that the university sometimes has is the relationship to the unknown is to destroy it by knowing as opposed to spaces, right it's viewed as you know, like, this is like the physics to read it just need a better apparatus. Where's my bigger telescope? My bigger microscope, whatever. You know, I just need better eyes instead of like having a relationship to the unseen and having a relationship to the unknown that doesn't require you to see it or know it.” ‒ Reid Gómez

“So by changing the timeline of their intervention and their involvement, they got through a voice that they didn't have before. And so that's what I look at placing time and space as ways, as opportunities, to look for creative solutions and ways to perhaps look at a new interpretation of things.” ‒ Melissa Tatum

"What I really like about GIS, and what I find so interesting, in terms of like, creating multiple layers to a map, is the way that you can destabilize the sort of centrality of, for example, a colonial narrative, right? So you can use these tools which are like impossible to make chronological, right? Because like, people encounter these maps, and they're like, clicking around in these ways that you can't really anticipate. And then, you know, can have multiple, because maps are just representations of perspectives, right? So like, you can have multiple perspectives in tension with each other in terms of, you know, what were the different indigenous communities at that time, as far as we know, or, more importantly to me, right today, like, where are those lands? Or where's the contested land? Or what are the different language families and religions, food systems, environmental degradation in that particular area, or you can pull in all of this data from giant spreadsheets, and then you can visualize it and these really interesting ways and depending on who's using the map, right, like they can filter out data and it's just this like really mean the Image tool to put literally totally different worldviews and ways of experiencing land and approaching lands together.” ‒ Anita Huizar-Hernández

“And, you know, my biggest thing when I travel anywhere, is to read the literature of the area. So writers who are from there. Both, I guess, traditional, contemporary -- if I can, if it's in translation. And also did like, figure out what the sort of land issues are in those places, what sort of different displacements have happened, what sort of ethnic minorities might have been done away with, or a race.” ‒ Bojan Louis

“But I'll just talk briefly about the Hawaiian word more or less alone, it means story. The root word there are two words and there are mo, which is directly translates to kind of lizard. And then ʻōlelo is speaking. And so lizards are associated with forests, and water. And so water or this wellsprings of life, wherever there's fresh water, usually there's a mall that guards it. And so it's the idea of stories give us life in the same way that water does it alive nourish is something that we need to move forward as people more or they also can lose their tails sometimes, right? And they can grow back…So every good story has multiple multiple layers and the way we see ourselves in that is ever changing, I guess and that perhaps is one of the beauty of really good storytelling.” ‒ Clint Anderson

“That's how I read about Marx. The great travel storyteller. And because he believes in the power of these stories, and that's what some people myself, so go say that the power of that work is in the stories that are told that way that they're told, and that we can tell those stories that we know what the machinery was like, we know what that is, and some other good stories, they have power...So by telling these stories, like Marx the great storyteller, not in a linear way and not comparatively, I'm trying to increase the spirit power. So some people like…that's like a creative writing project. No, that's my structure.” ‒ Reid Gómez

“There's a kind of feeling among lawyers and law faculty that law is not about stories. Law is about facts. Interpreting facts. One of my colleagues, Carol Rose, [says] that the whole history of the our legal system is actually built on story. Right? The whole the state of nature, right? Our legal philosophy or political philosophy in the United States is built on this Western liberal tradition.” ‒ Melissa Tatum

“...I find storytelling really urgent and necessary. And I find couching it in that way really urgent and necessary, because it is simultaneously sort of disconcerting ‒ that something that we think of as like, firm, in whatever way, it's actually shaped by this cacophony of stories. And this, you know, very uneasy balance of stories that sort of compete for attention on different sides. But I also find it really hopeful because stories can change, and we can have a role in changing those stories, and then bringing attention to different stories.” ‒ Anita Huizar-Hernández

“So combining them and then separating them and then thinking about, rather than just the formal, like poetic components, like meter or rhyme or or structure, like what the sort of cultural or imagination, implication of imagination is with those forms.” ‒ Bojan Louis

“Your practice of knowledge becomes whatever you dictate it to be. And so I mean, simple things like incorporating a protocol, simple things, like honoring your ancestors, simple things, like going out into a space, utilizing stories from the place where you're at our ideas of praxis, right, challenging the status quo, incorporating where you can in your little spaces, ideas of indigeneity. And that's just ideas of respect, honoring ancestors, keeping alive traditions and practices, and recognizing your place and your role in that.” ‒ Clint Anderson

“That's our work as thinkers to say what is the relevance of this to my home community and however you would define your home community and the whole community will be changing all the time because you're changing all the time.” ‒ Reid Gómez

“So by getting people at the same table, listening to each other understanding where each other is coming from understanding the interest that each group has, or whatever the problem is, that allow for very effective solutions. That really change the way I approach things. It's like it's gonna have faith in the system. I still have faith in the legal system, even if I don't have faith in the courts. So that's sort of how this all comes together for me.” ‒ Melissa Tatum

“It’s very difficult if you work on the past, if you're interested in marginalized voices, is really grappling with the materials that we have. And what we can do with those materials.” ‒ Anita Huizar-Hernández

“When you start assigning things and categorizing things, it ultimately starts dehumanizing things, right? Because it's like, theoretically, these people are human in this way. Like, you know, theoretically, history happened in this way. Which is all fine. And, you know, it's important to discuss, but when it comes to, I think, to being an artist, and like thinking about being a storyteller, or poet, or a musician…there's a large amount of intuition and imagination. I think that theory could potentially drown out.” ‒ Bojan Louis

“From my birth, my death, and I'm existing kind of somewhere along here. The now time implies that the time I will see timeline is more spiral, it's circular, an extends out. And so my life can extend up and out through that. And so there are different places and spaces that are have already been inhabited by my ancestors, my children, their great grandchildren, and all those ancestors to come. And so when you're thinking about that, that context, then you realize that at this moment in time right now, I'm not even a thought. And at this time, right now, my greed, greed, greed, greed, greed, grandchild is doing something amazing. And so thinking about my place, and again, going back to the idea of what has come before me what how we're thinking about that all like in the people who have loved by far who have died, or have argued who have been heartbroken or whatever, they experienced immense joy, all those things that have happened, what is my function right now in this space. And then at this very time, maybe someone is referencing me remember my great, great, great grandpa, we did this, or had this impact, or loved so that I could exist. And so the now time is just kind of at least being a little bit of cognitive, or being cognizant of kind of your role, again, going back to those these key ideas, your role and your function in society, and in your family and in your lineage.” ‒ Clint Anderson

“Time is not a line. I don’t work in periods. And I don’t do comparison.” ‒ Reid Gómez

“Time and space are intersecting concepts that are very restrained in the law, right. The law tends to tell things in a very linear way. But a lot of what law happens, it seems to be a thing, a lot of the linear aspect of law is an attempt to impose order and to explain things in a structured way, in a systematic way. But it doesn't always fit comfortably, with many concepts with certain concepts. Like for example, a legal system has a very linear concept of intellectual property. This is, we're talking about patent or trademark or copyright, you have to be able to identify the originator of the idea. If it's lost in the mists of time, then that doesn't count or it's too old. It's not a new invention. Right, you can only protect it if it's new and you can prove who came up with the idea and trace it back. But yet, that way of looking at things is very different than the way many cultures. This is one of those cultural filter ideas and concepts, that people have to realize that this is driven by a certain cultural approach.” ‒ Melissa Tatum

“On one hand students, love chronology. Like who doesn't it? And yet it’s extremely insidious and dangerous to teach a class where it's like here is the indigenous past, and then the Spanish-Mexican past, and then the Anglo present into future, right, and complicating that for students and making sure that that's not what they're getting and keeping all of these sort of different trajectories alive and interconnected.” ‒ Anita Huizar-Hernández

“But like, for Navajos, or for me at least, time is sort of, like, there is no past, present or future. Those are sort of miss. Those are theories too. They're not solid, concrete things, they're so abstract. And they also suggest a linearity. But, you know, I like to think of all those things happening at once, right? So like, anything I do any practice, I engage in any sort of decision I make, I think has like, you know, deep consequences for my ancestors. And like, you know, if that decision is a poor decision that speaks on maybe their failure, or their or my failure, or whatever it may be. And it's like, if I forget those past teachings of my ancestors, that has a very significant effect on not only my present decision, but like my future decisions, right.” ‒ Bojan Louis