Growing up on the reservation, you can’t help but feel haunted by the ashes of empire.

On the Navajo Nation that can be witnessed in the aftermath of radioactive colonization with abandoned uranium mines and tailing piles left dormant and exposed to the public. My Grandpa David was a uranium miner for the Kerr-McGee Corporation. As a result of that raw exposure, he developed a series of chronic health issues that contributed to his death. By the time I was born, it had been years since he passed away. My mom once told me a story about a moment when Grandpa David was in a coma. It happened the same week Elvis Presley died. My family remembers the white nurses in the Indian hospital walking around mourning the King’s death. A few days later when Grandpa David came out of his coma, he already knew. He told my family he met Elvis in that other realm.

Not long after that, Grandpa David too would finally take his last breaths. I’ve always felt a haunted connection to Western pop culture, and that family story reaffirms it. I say haunted because while there is so much I adore about Western culture – from film to literature and comic books – it’s rare to feel any sense of recognition as an Indigenous person. This was more so true coming of age in the ‘90s and early 2000s. Oftentimes you just encounter racist mascots and crude stereotypes of Natives from a bygone era: the implication being the invisibility of present day Natives. To be seen in that way as a living dead figure, it truly feels like you’re staring at Death. And the only time you can see yourself on screen is when you turn the power off and stare at the darkness, making out the silhouette of a you that’s trying to come to life.