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[MUSIC PLAYING] KERRI MILLER: I'm Carrie Miller. Now to the last writer in our Minnesota Writers Week series. Anton Treuer grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation with a deep interest in history and language. He writes in the introduction to one of his books on Native history, "The borderland I grew up in was more than an awkward physical nexus of races and communities."

Today, a conversation about how that nexus still influences his work and his writing. Anton Treuer is executive director of the American Indian Resource Center at Bemidji State University. He's the author of a number of books, including National Geographic's Atlas of Indian Nations and Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask. And he joins us today from MPR's Bemidji bureau. Anton, welcome. It's good to have you on the show and for the series.

ANTON TREUER: Yes, thanks for having me on.

KERRI MILLER: Are people still afraid to ask what they think are naive and uninformed questions about Indians?

ANTON TREUER: Some people are, especially when I work doing equity or cultural competence training work with k-12 educators, for example. I think a lot of people grew up with the sugarcoated version of Christopher Columbus in the first Thanksgiving and very little else to more deeply understand the first people of the land. And we condition educators, especially, to be authorities who tell passive students what's going on. And it's hard to be an authority on something you didn't get a lot of training in.

Worried about getting their head bitten off by an angry Indian or exposing an ignorance, some people are a little tepid and timid. But I am seeing, really, a broad and growing interest in Native issues, history. Even the economic climate in Indian country is of great interest to a lot of people. So we're having more conversations, and I think that's all very healthy.

KERRI MILLER: That unease about asking the wrong question, I think it also suggests that we know that there is so much more to the story than the one that we learned in school. But we also know that maybe we don't know enough to be having the informed and intelligent conversations around it that we do, that we should be.

ANTON TREUER: Right. I think it's very liberating to give ourselves permission to simply ask guiding questions and look for the answers together. And increasingly, we're seeing some of that. It's weird to me that the British developed our educational system, and we're still teaching their curriculum. But we are. We teach people more about the history of the British and Roman Empires than the 10,000 years of documented human history here in Minnesota.

We teach people more about animals they'd see on safari in Kenya than the roadkill they'd see on Minnesota's highways. And ironically, by doing that, we engineer an acculturation process whereby people get disconnected from the environment, the place in which we live, and from one another. So I think deepening those connections and providing resources is really important work.

KERRI MILLER: When I hear you explain it like that, it is weird. And I wonder if this comes from some pretty traditional and maybe outdated ideas of what it means to be educated. Maybe that's some of what we have to change too.

ANTON TREUER: I think so. Inertia doesn't change all on its own. And ultimately, when we've had any kind of change, social change, cultural change, it's come because people have asked for it. Women's suffrage didn't occur because a bunch of guys in suits said, let's give our wives and daughters the right to vote.

[LAUGHTER]

Some women had asked for that. And it was the same thing with civil rights. It's the same thing with any broadening of our perspectives in education and social lives.

KERRI MILLER: I get the sense that you use humor a lot when you're talking about this, and maybe it's a tool to get into an uncomfortable conversation about it. Am I right?

ANTON TREUER: Well, sure. If you're going to tell people the truth, you have to make them laugh, or they'll kill you.

[LAUGHTER]

KERRI MILLER: And you do that in a way that isn't-- here's four jokes that I use to get started in this conversation. You use a sense of sly humor. Where does that come from?

ANTON TREUER: Oh, I don't know. I've grown up around hilarious people. But I think it's not all by design. Part of it's just how I'm wired. But I think ultimately, when we want to broach any uncomfortable subject, it's important to maintain engagement. And if things get too uncomfortable, then people get scared and avoid the conversation or drop out and disengage.

And if we make things so comfortable that we never get to the issues, then people who want change drop out and disengage. So we have to find a way to get in the middle, where we can challenge ourselves out of our comfort zones but, at the same time, look at what we have in terms of shared values and communication strategies. And I think with the Native issues, in particular, a lot of people have been walking around on eggshells.

KERRI MILLER: Yeah, right.

ANTON TREUER: And to me, it's really important that we create some safe space, where we can then have a more meaningful conversation and get beyond our Minnesota nice boundaries and talking about the weather and talk about the fact that our world is changing really, really fast. And we should do everything we can to make everybody better equipped for the world in which they'll live and work.

KERRI MILLER: Well, I thought you brought a lot of humor to some of the questions in the Everything You Wanted to Know book, including you describe being-- I think you were giving a lecture in France. And somebody raised their hand to ask, where are the real Indians? What was he really asking, do you think?

ANTON TREUER: Yeah, that was a pretty funny event. For starters, French guys never seem to get super excited and energetic at academic talks. But this guy really was, and that was his question. Monsieur, where are the real Indians?

[LAUGHTER]

And I was trying to think, how am I going to answer this guy? Am I just going to tell him off, or am I going to take it personally? So I just responded with, where are the real Frenchmen? Because there's a castle across the road, but there's nobody living in it.

[LAUGHTER]

And I don't see guys riding up and down the streets on horses in shining armor with banners for Charlemagne. I don't even see berets and little pipes. Where are the real Frenchmen?

[LAUGHTER]

And so he's thinking for a minute, and then finally, it dawned on him that, OK, some stereotype of French people is not what it means to be French. That's more directly connected to our land and language. And a Frenchman can even be French if he's traveling in China. And I said, it's the same for us. We get to change over time and can still be the same people.

And to me, it's kind of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, yes, very much, we need and deserve permission, just like the English are not what the druids were, but they're still very English. And it's like that with any culture. Native people also can change and modernize, and so forth. But at some point, there also are concessions that are too fundamental and that really do change a person's or a group's identity.

And so looking at the importance of language and culture is one of those things. 1/3 of Minnesotans are people of German heritage. And most have been here for up to five generations. They might enjoy a nice vacation in Germany but would feel most comfortable coming back home to Minnesota. So there is a difference between having German heritage and being a Deutschlander.

And so too is there a difference between having Native heritage and being what our ancestors were. And where we draw those lines is sometimes contested ground, but I think an important discussion to have.

KERRI MILLER: Yeah, those ideas around stereotype and identity, I get the feeling that that is some of what you were thinking about when you described this borderland that you grew up in as a pretty confusing place in a lot of ways. When did you really-- I mean, as kids, I don't know how explicitly we think that through. When did you really start to understand about these competing ideas of identity and why you felt like you lived at the edge in a lot of ways?

ANTON TREUER: It did take me a while to even have a perspective on this. But certainly, the way that one is othered ends up having an impact on the way that we see the world and interact with other people. So I had my share of horror stories going to school mainly with peer-related interactions and so forth, but sometimes in other areas too. And it started to strike me more in high school that it was strange.

You almost have to try to miss an Indian reservation leaving Bemidji and heading to the Twin Cities. But they would load up all the kids and drive the 225 miles to the Twin Cities to go on a field trip. And it started to strike me as a little strange that there are these Native nations that are right next to us that-- of course, my family is from-- I have relatives buried in the cemetery in Beena on the Leech Lake Reservation for nearly 300 years in a row.

KERRI MILLER: Wow.

ANTON TREUER: And how come those worlds weren't talking to each other? And how come there were so many misunderstandings? And very naively, when I applied to college, like most kids of most races, my goal was to get out of Dodge, which I did. And I went to Princeton University. And naively, I thought, oh, this will be great because everybody here will have gone to some sort of prep school or have something more than where I came from to understand Native people.

And of course, that was horribly naive. I ended up thinking, jeez, these are the dumbest smart people I've ever met because it started all over again with, where's your tomahawk? And whatever.

KERRI MILLER: Come on.

ANTON TREUER: Oh, yeah. Oh, sure. And it wasn't all mean. But sometimes it was working out in the gym, and someone would come up and say, you have the most beautiful red skin. And I thought, my skin's not really red, but do you say thank you, or do you get upset? And so there are so many of these things. One of my really weird Eureka moments was I got homesick eventually, and I heard that there was this Comanche medicine woman coming to the New Jersey woods to run sweat lodge ceremonies.

And I was smart enough now to realize that there are plenty of Froot Loops in the world. But I decided to give it a shot, and I went out there. And to my surprise, at about 4:00 in the afternoon in broad daylight, there were about 20 white folk waiting for the sweat lodge ceremony completely naked, no clothes on.

[LAUGHTER]

And one even had some sort of staff with deer horns and chicken feathers on it. And I was thinking, oh, my goodness, this is really going to be crazy. And I had conflicting feelings. Part of me wanted to laugh because, dang, there's 20 naked people standing around in the woods. And part of me wanted to run because, dang, there's 20 naked people standing around in the woods.

KERRI MILLER: Exactly. And?

ANTON TREUER: And part of me was really offended. Is that what they think we are all about? So then, being naive, I opened up the car door and got out and was immediately folded into a tight embrace by one of these completely naked strangers, who was hugging me hard and started saying, I'm so sorry for what my people did to your people. So now, the desire to laugh, run, or get mad is just growing.

But as I looked at this woman, she was an elder, and she had tears welling in her eyes. And it occurred to me that no matter how misguided she was-- and clearly, she was misguided. But no matter how misguided she was, her emotive response was real. And then if I'd just got mad and told her off, she would think Indians are angry. And if I simply walked away, she'd keep on thinking whatever she was thinking.

So trying to think quickly, I said, would you mind putting some clothes on because I'd love to talk to you about all of this? And she did. And we had a pretty good conversation. And in a weird way, I guess you could say I learned something from a naked stranger in the New Jersey woods, which was that it's really important, incumbent upon all of us, to make sure that we do create some safe space and that we give a meaningful answer when there is a question that somebody, through no fault of their own, didn't have put on a silver platter and handed to them.

How are we going to start that process? Building bridges, connecting, and healing. And there's enough in our history to make somebody mad for generations yet to come. And there's also enough to make people feel guilty for generations yet to come. But neither guilt nor anger are productive emotions. In fact, they can eat us up like a cancer. And as our country's demography is changing so rapidly, it's ever more important to make sure that people are equipped with the knowledge and skills to operate in cultural environments that are different from our own.

And that's important for everybody to have and be able to do. So I saw it as serving larger purpose. In some ways, I'm very heartened that so many Native people have been really warmly receiving the book too. I think, in part, all of us get a lot of the same questions. But also, Native people, just like everybody else, grow up with the same sugarcoated version of Christopher Columbus in the first Thanksgiving.

And to find access to knowledge about oneself, as well as the rest of the world, it's elusive for a lot of Native people. We have to seek that out. And ironically, even in a lot of the tribal schools, it's not as evident and accessible as you'd think. So I think it's the start of some work that a lot of other people are really engaging with too on many different levels that are helping make it easier.

KERRI MILLER: Anton Treuer is with us. You've just tuned in you thought. Who is talking about naked strangers in the woods of New Jersey? He's joining us this morning as the last, I am sorry to say because this has been such a great week of Minnesota writers. And we're talking about how his own experience on Leech Lake Reservation, his interest in history and language-- I want to get to the language side of this as well-- informs the way he writes and some of the teaching that he does.

And if you'd like to join the conversation, 651-227-6000, 800-242-2828. To Rachel in Sioux Falls. Hi, Rachel. Thanks for waiting.

RACHEL: Yes, thank you. I have one very quick question and then another question. Hopefully, they won't be too long. The very first question is-- OK, I'm a substitute teacher in Sioux Falls, and I work primarily with adolescents. And I tend to work with-- well, when I first started working here, they were actually called at-risk kids, and those were the children who were Native studies. And it was before they even allowed the white kids to enroll in Native studies.

So that was a whole thing for me that I immediately went to the district about. My question is, what is the right thing? As a naive person who has always been very socially active, is it right to say Indian or Native American? That's my first question.

ANTON TREUER: That's a great question. Yeah, so with regard to terminology, is it Indian, Native American, Aboriginal, Indigenous, First Nation person, or what? And there's nothing like not even knowing how to phrase the question to completely paralyze the conversation. And by the way, this is an important disclaimer for everything we're sharing today. I represent one person and one person's view. And this is one of those areas where you might find a diversity of opinions.

For me, every one of the terms that's out there has some sort of handicap or clunkiness. Indian was a misnomer when Christopher Columbus thought he was in China, no, Japan, no, India. Yes, and these are Indians. Native is preferred in some circles, but there are also a lot of other people who'll use that in other ways.

RACHEL: I personally use First Peoples of this nation or of this land or First Nations.

ANTON TREUER: I like that too. And it's preferred by a lot of people in Canada, the First Nations term. I guess for me, the most important thing is to say that no matter what the issues are with any of the terms, let's create some safe space where people can actually just ask their questions and get on with the conversation. Some groups like the National Congress of American Indians has said, no, it's American Indian. Others have repudiated that term.

And I don't think that we should make everybody walk around on eggshells, although it's good, like In Canada when they agreed upon First Nations people. And I'd love to see us come up with and agree upon a term like that in the US too, although using the same exact term gets us confused with the Canadians. And so they all have a little thing that requires some additional explanation. Indigenous is good, but there are Indigenous people in every continent, except for Antarctica.

So you end up having to have some really long, clunky word. But ultimately, I think if we have an open mind respect in our hearts, let's get on with the conversation and not be too bogged down in the label.

KERRI MILLER: Anton, you turned pretty quickly to a thread that I've come back to surprisingly often through this week of talking to Minnesota writers, and that is a sense of outsiderness. And that's a value to writers because I think it makes a writer a more sharp observer. But it's interesting in you because you were born here, but you clearly-- were you born in Washington and then moved here as a young child? You spent a lot of time in your childhood here.

ANTON TREUER: Right. Most of my life, I've been a Minnesota person. I was actually born in Washington DC. My mother was going to school at the time, and Father took a job out there. But raised most of my years on and around the Leech Lake Reservation, went to high school in Bemidji. And even today, this is something that I think about very intentionally. So I've published all of these books. I'm a hotshot.

I could take a job and probably make twice as much money somewhere else. But for me, the connection to place is so important. And I also have nine children. And connecting them to place is also really, really important. So for me, when our kids step out the door to our house, we're within 10 minutes of all of their grandparents. We can go hunting, fishing, and we do actually pursue a lot of our traditional harvesting. We harvest wild rice, make maple syrup and sugar. Kids snare rabbits and things like that.

And having access to those lifeways and our ceremonial life and even just the fact that we have had our relatives buried in the same place for nearly 300 years in a row are things that connect us to the place and to one another and to our customs and traditions. And I just can't put a price on that. So I'm very committed to being and staying here for many, many different reasons.

KERRI MILLER: Former Minneapolis Mayor Rybak is on the line. Mayor, hi.

RAYMOND THOMAS RYBAK: Hi. I am most known as a huge Anton fan, so I'm really excited you have him on. And I love your new book, which is even better than 500 Nations, which was out of this world.

ANTON TREUER: Oh, thank you.

RAYMOND THOMAS RYBAK: So speaking of place, I had, for many years, like many people, just driven by Highway 371 in Brainerd, passed Hole-in-the-Day Lake, and thought not a whole lot about it until I read a fascination of Hole-in-the-Day and realized from your book what an incredibly important two peoples Hole-in-the-Day.

And it got me thinking about this idea about what we name places. People in Minneapolis, for years, have wanted to rename Lake Calhoun after Cloudman or some other Native person. What spots in Minnesota do you think we should be thinking about naming after Native people?

ANTON TREUER: Yeah, that's a great question. I'd love to see us do what Hawaii has done in really renaming and reclaiming all of their spaces and streets to the best of their ability to reflect what's really unique about that space. And honestly, a lot of our places and spaces do have Dakota and Ojibwe words, from the name for the state to lots and lots of place names.

So I think it's good to think about that. What's really unique and special about our state and our specific places within that? Of course, some places are of special importance to Indigenous people. And when we start looking at not only traditional village locations and so forth, but sacred sites and so forth, I think that's really-- those are good places to start.

KERRI MILLER: Anton, I'm really glad the mayor called in with that because I want to talk to you about the-- I know you're an activist around the Ojibwe language. But it occurred to me when he was asking that that when we say the names of-- and maybe many of us don't even think about it because they become so familiar. But it does put those of us who didn't grow up hearing a Native language, like Ojibwe, maybe just briefly back in touch with the musicality and the rhythm and the importance of that language. And maybe that spreads if more of these places were renamed their original names.

ANTON TREUER: Sure. And Native people had, from their own culture and worldview, distinct understandings of place. So you know I think about the word for my fair town of Bemidji. It's really from an Ojibwe word Bemijigamaag. And it means where the current cuts across. And it describes a really unique geographic feature because we're in the middle of four primary watersheds. So you've got water flowing really from Bemidji west and north through the Red River watershed.

You've got water flowing north into the Rainy through the Bigfork watershed. You've got water flowing east through the Lake Superior watershed and the St. Louis. And then you've got water going south on the Mississippi. And the Mississippi River actually flows in each of those directions. It starts south of Bemidji, flows north and west and goes in a big circle. So our town is at the northernmost point of the Mississippi River. And the word describes all of that. So when you pick up names that are descriptive or speak to the uniqueness of a place, I think that just adds to its richness.

KERRI MILLER: Yeah, aren't there phrases in Ojibwe that don't really have a translation that English doesn't really capture?

ANTON TREUER: Sure. All languages are composed of roots for their words, and they all have meanings. It's sometimes harder in English because there are so many influences on the English language, from Latin, Greek. There's even at least 20 Ojibwe words in the English language. And so you have to do a little more academic work to get at them.

But for many languages in the world, those deeper meanings are known to everyday speakers, so you speak in two meanings. There's the literal description and then the association with a particular word. And all of that can really say a lot. Our word for an elder, gichi-aya'aa, means great being. Our word for an elderly woman, mindimooyenh, means one who holds things together and describes the role of the family matriarch.

Whereas in English you have old woman, elderly woman, aged woman. And language shapes worldview. So in the English-speaking world, people are reluctant to say how old they really are. And we don't put elders on the cover of Cosmo and want facelifts and Botox injections and things like that. And when you're operating in Ojibwe, you don't actually have to say things like respect your elders because it's built right in with any word you could possibly use.

KERRI MILLER: Oh. I've been asking a couple of questions of all of our Minnesota writers, and I'd like to throw them at you. Will you tell me a bit about standing at the doorway of your writing space and what we would actually see if we were there, the place that you've been doing a lot of writing and thinking? And what does it look like?

ANTON TREUER: Yeah, I've had to be very adaptable with where I write and when and how. So probably my favorite place to write is at home. And I'm in my physical space not only in my house, but out in the middle of the woods, there's a lake there. And I feel very connected in that part of the world. But I do have nine children, and so standing in the doorway, I'm probably dodging you know Nerf gun bullets and kids climbing on top of my head and things like that too.

And I'm very busy. So I wear so many hats. I officiate at a lot of our ceremonies and travel and spend a lot of time speaking and working with people in our ceremonial contexts. And I also travel and do a lot of work in both higher ed and k-12, working with teaching teams and doing equity work. And I also have my academic brain, which I apply to my writing in a lot of ways, history projects, language projects.

And ultimately, I have to have a portable workstation. So I work at home as much as I can, but I work in my office at the university. I work when I'm on the road. And sometimes, I've even done some of it when I'm driving and just using a MacSpeech Dictate or something like that and talking into the computer and being very safe and not reading it as I go. But that helps me with efficiency and time management and to keep all of those balls in the air.

KERRI MILLER: So are you saying that there really is no retreat in your home for-- a place where you can go in, I don't know, maybe close the door and put yourself in a mental space where you can dream big dreams and be in your imagination?

ANTON TREUER: Yeah, I certainly retreat into that space. And sometimes, it takes a while for somebody to pound through the door, even when they're sitting right next to me or physically touching me. But ultimately, my house is full of human beings all the time, coming and going. And even at work, if I shut the door at work, people are pounding on the door. The interruptions get interrupted.

Sometimes, that's one of the big challenges for being productive and getting things done. And I have been extremely productive, but a lot of that is being able to work wherever I happen to be. Although I'd say, my greatest sanctuary is certainly where I live.

KERRI MILLER: Is there a piece of music or is there a painting or something artistic that has been inspiring and in some ways influential to you outside of literature, if I could, in your writing and in the art that you produce?

ANTON TREUER: Yeah. I actually feel it's really important for everybody to have heroes. And so I have pictures of some of mine and look up and think about who they were, what they were trying to do. And sometimes, my heroes aren't the same ones that everybody else would have. There's an elder from the Sainte-Croix Reservation in Wisconsin named Archie Mosey, who I had a really deep personal relationship with.

He was born in 1901, and he was really pretty advanced in years when I first met him. But he ended up being one of my greatest guides and advisors and inspirations. And so I've got a picture of him, and I actually have copies of it. So it's in my office, and it's at home, and so forth.

And sometimes, I'll just look up at him and think, not only is that someone I'd like to emulate in terms of character, although I'm sure imperfectly, but just an inspiration to me about someone who was able to maintain such an incredibly strong sense of self in his Native identity but also successfully navigate in the rest of the world. And that's one of the challenges, I think, for a lot of Native people that I look to him for guidance on or inspiration on.

KERRI MILLER: Anton Treuer is executive director of the American Indian Resource Center at Bemidji State University. He's the author of a number of books, including Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask. This has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much. And especially knowing how busy you are, I'm grateful you made time for us today. Thank you.

ANTON TREUER: Thank you for having me on. My pleasure.

KERRI MILLER: Our Y Factor Friday documentary from the BBC on the other side of news. But first, to John Wanamaker. John, what's your top story?

JOHN WANAMAKER: Well, Kerry, some mixed economic news out today. The government says economic growth slowed to a 2.6% pace in the fourth quarter of 2014 as a big burst in consumer spending was offset by weakness in other areas. However, US consumers are more confident than they've been since January 2004. They're more confident in the economy.

The University of Michigan says its index of consumer sentiment rose by nearly 5 points this month. Consumers who were surveyed said the prospects for the US economy are the strongest in a decade. And 1/2 of consumers expect the expansion to keep going another five years. Germany is rejecting suggestions that Greece should be forgiven repayment of its rescue loans, while a top eurozone official said there was no decision yet on what to do after the country's bailout program runs out at the end of February.

The comments come as Greece's new radical-left government voted in last Sunday sought to make good on its pre-election promises of seeking to write off 1/2 of Greece's debt and reverse the austerity measures, which are a condition of its international bailout. German Finance Ministry spokesman said Greece was obliged to abide by the terms of its 240-billion-euro, that's about $270-billion, bailout program agreed to by previous governments, or they would endanger the deal.

Governor Mark Dayton's budget proposal includes more money to compensate farmers for livestock losses due to wolves. This after the federal government put the animal back on the endangered list. The government's budget-- the governor's budget, I should say, would provide $125,000 annually for wolf depredation compensation. That's up $100,000 from the current $25,000 per year. This is Minnesota Public Radio News.