Whiskey Tender: A Memoir

"In straightforward and affecting prose, Deborah Jackson Taffa writes about being brought up by a Quechan (Yuma) and Laguna Pueblo father and a Catholic Latina mother, both on and off the Yuma reservation. Although her parents were united in their approach to maintaining a family, their attitudes toward the world diverged in other ways, and Taffa received mixed messages about her Indigeneity, her proximity to whiteness and how she was meant to carry herself. As a teenager, she began to experience anger at the injustices her people were subjected to and, at the same time, began to learn that all change is sacred."