Oak Flat: A Fight for Sacred Land in the American West

by Lauren Redniss Narrated by Lauren Redniss, Darrell Dennis, A. Martinez, Ann Marie Lee, Arthur Morey, Crystle Lightning, Elizabeth Liang, Hillary Huber, John H. Mayer, Jon Lindstrom, Kimberly Guerrero, Kyla Garcia, Tanis Parenteau, Various

Overview

A powerful work of visual nonfiction about three generations of an Apache family struggling to protect sacred land from a multinational mining corporation, by MacArthur “Genius” and National Book Award finalist Lauren Redniss, the acclaimed author of Thunder & Lightning.

Oak Flat is a serene high-elevation mesa that sits above the southeastern Arizona desert, fifteen miles to the west of the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. For the San Carlos tribe, Oak Flat is a holy place, an ancient burial ground and religious site where Apache girls celebrate the coming-of-age ritual known as the Sunrise Ceremony. In 1995, a massive untapped copper reserve was discovered nearby. A decade later, a law was passed transferring the area to a private company, whose planned copper mine will wipe Oak Flat off the map-sending its natural springs, petroglyph-covered rocks, and old-growth trees tumbling into a void. 

Redniss's deep reporting anchors this mesmerizing human narrative. Oak Flat tells the story of a race-against-time struggle for a swath of American land, which pits one of the poorest communities in the United States against the federal government and two of the world's largest mining conglomerates. The book follows the fortunes of two families with profound connections to the contested site: the Nosies, an Apache family whose teenage daughter is an activist and leader in the Oak Flat fight, and the Gorhams, a mining family whose patriarch was a sheriff in the lawless early days of Arizona statehood.

The still-unresolved Oak Flat conflict is ripped from today's headlines, but its story resonates with foundational American themes: the saga of westward expansion, the resistance and resilience of Native peoples, and the efforts of profiteers to control the land and unearth treasure beneath it while the lives of individuals hang in the balance.

This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF that contains a selection of original illustrations by the author, which appear in the print book.

Read by: Lauren Redniss, Darrell Dennis, Kimberly Farr, Kyla Garcia, Kimberly Guerrero, Hillary Huber, Ami Korn, A. Martinez, Ann Marie Lee, Elizabeth Liang, Crystle Lightning, Jon Lindstrom, John H. Mayer, Arthur Morey, and Tanis Parenteau

Editorial Reviews

NOVEMBER 2020 - AudioFile

Author Lauren Redniss aptly delivers the narrative that threads through this immersive audiobook. The fine cast of additional narrators, which includes Crystle Lightning as Naelyn Pike, A. Martinez as Wendsler Nosie, and the redoubtable Arthur Morey as Jackie Gorham, makes the audiobook especially dramatic. The voices transport the listener to the high, dry country of southeast Arizona’s Apache San Carlos Reservation. Here is a story of sacred native lands threatened by the development of their vast copper deposits. Accompanied by a stunning pdf of Redniss’s creations, this work of art celebrates the Apache culture, and the singular voices of the Apache people sound authentic. The haunting performance of a girl’s Sunrise Dance on Oak Flat mesa—her rite of passage—stays with the listener long after the audio ends. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

★ 12/23/2019

MacArthur “genius grant”–recipient Redniss (Thunder and Lightning) combines drawings with reportage and oral history to tell the story of America’s decimation of indigenous people and culture in this gorgeous, devastating, and hopeful ethnographic account. Oak Flat, a sacred Apache site in Arizona’s “Copper Corridor” is the subject of a years-long legal battle, beginning in the early 2000s, between the Resolution Copper mining company and an underresourced coalition of Apaches and conservationists. The hero of this far-reaching epic is Naelyn Pike, an Apache teen who testifies to Congress and provides an eloquent account of her Sunrise Dance, a complex coming-of-age ritual for young Apache women. Redniss also interviews miners and non-Native longtime residents of poverty-stricken Superior, Ariz., to reveal that only outsiders are getting rich in the mining scheme. She also documents the long legal war that the U.S. has waged against Native American territories, including the Supreme Court’s 1823 ruling in Johnson v. McIntosh that “‘principles of abstract justice’ could not be factored” into decisions about Native land. Redniss’s glowing colored-pencil illustrations capture the surreal magic of Southwestern landscapes: from a green-eyed ocelot, to the nearly empty Main Street in Superior. The future of Oak Flat and other sacred sites remains precarious, but Redniss effectively conveys the importance of these grounds and delivers a respectful and powerful portrait of people who are down but refuse to be counted out. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

An artist and writer, Ms. Redniss has a flair for weaving deep reporting and visual storytelling into immersive and engrossing nonfiction. Redniss’s colorful pencil and crayon drawings capture the surreal beauty of the region, with its rocky canyons and gnarly old-growth trees. Regardless of one’s loyalties, Oak Flat conveys the pernicious consequences of viewing land as a resource to be exploited, relentlessly and with little regard for the future.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Lauren Redniss creates books like no one else’s. . . . Oak Flat moves seamlessly between settings, and between voices. . . . Redniss’s stylistic, empathic, and intellectual gifts [are] on great, and equivalent, display. . . . [Her illustrations are] drawn with such animation they seem ready to rise from the page. . . . Oak Flat is a fervent and beautiful argument. . . . It is, one might hope, proof of art's purpose: to expand minds, to promote beauty, and to make change.”—NPR

“The author makes her niche in the little-discussed ‘visual nonfiction’ genre, writing and illustrating books that read like journalism but feel like artsy graphic novels. . . . Between gentle, full-page colored pencil drawings of kind faces and blissful landscapes, Redniss offers mountains of research and interviews.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

“In conveying the story of the ongoing clash over a patch of southeastern Arizona—site of priceless copper deposits, but also sacred Apache land—Redniss weaves together physics, history, geology, legislative chicanery, intimate portraiture, and tribal custom and culture into a vivid, searing, indelible act of witness.”—Patrick Radden Keefe, New York Times bestselling author of Say Nothing
 
“Oak Flat left me stunned. History, testimony, art, landscape: Lauren Redniss weaves these elements together to evoke the rock and sand and sky of the Arizona desert, and to bring to life the story of the people for whom that land is sacred. Rarely is a book simultaneously so heartfelt and so brilliant.”—David Treuer, New York Times bestselling author of The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

“Blending journalism, politics, poetry, and art is a literary high-wire act. Lauren Redniss is one of the few artists who can do it. Oak Flat is a bewitching and mesmerizing book.”—Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis

“Gorgeous, devastating, and hopeful . . . Redniss’s glowing colored-pencil illustrations capture the surreal magic of Southwestern landscapes: from a green-eyed ocelot, to the nearly empty Main Street in Superior.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
“Artistically and thematically profound . . . As a work of advocacy, the book is compelling and convincing; as a work of art, it is masterful.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Library Journal

02/01/2020

With this follow-up to her acclaimed Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future, Redniss continues to explore narrative and visual nonfiction in a work about Oak Flat, AZ, an ancient Apache burial ground and religious site. Redniss effectively chronicles Apache resistance to a cooper mining company interested in Oak Flat, and dedicated conservationists who provided additional support. The author interviewed Apache who perform religious ceremonies at Oak Flat, including the Sunrise Ceremony, a coming-of-age rite for young girls. She also interviewed Apache who work for the mining company, and are optimistic about the mine's and the community's future. Interspersed throughout are the author's drawings, which add additional personal touches to both the landscape and the people. Besides personal histories and narratives, the book also delves into the history of Arizona mining; the sovereignty of Native tribes; and the historical trauma as a result of ongoing efforts of colonization, including the systematic "re-education" of Native children. VERDICT As the fight to prevent the mine from operating continues to be litigated, works like this will continue to enrage and enchant readers of environmental underdog stories; this will be a helpful starting point for all interested in environmental justice. [See Prepub Alert, 9/23/19.]—Margaret Atwater-Singer, Univ. of Evansville Lib., IN

NOVEMBER 2020 - AudioFile

Author Lauren Redniss aptly delivers the narrative that threads through this immersive audiobook. The fine cast of additional narrators, which includes Crystle Lightning as Naelyn Pike, A. Martinez as Wendsler Nosie, and the redoubtable Arthur Morey as Jackie Gorham, makes the audiobook especially dramatic. The voices transport the listener to the high, dry country of southeast Arizona’s Apache San Carlos Reservation. Here is a story of sacred native lands threatened by the development of their vast copper deposits. Accompanied by a stunning pdf of Redniss’s creations, this work of art celebrates the Apache culture, and the singular voices of the Apache people sound authentic. The haunting performance of a girl’s Sunrise Dance on Oak Flat mesa—her rite of passage—stays with the listener long after the audio ends. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2019-12-18
This artistically and thematically profound account of a controversial mining initiative on land that the Apaches of Arizona consider sacred suggests a culture clash of irreconcilable differences.

As she has demonstrated in previous books, MacArthur fellow Redniss (Illustration/Parsons School of Design; Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present and Future, 2015, etc.) has a scope that extends well beyond the conventional limits of the graphic novel. Here, she frames her provocative narrative with artistry that evokes the awe and wonder of Native origin stories and the timelessness of eternity. Against this majestic artistic backdrop, Redniss chronicles the machinations of a mining company boasting massive profits as they battle the Natives of the region, who "consider themselves to be at war with the United States." As one activist notes, "we were kicked out of these holy places. The Apache religion survived…with the hope of returning one day to the ancestral homelands. There was always that prophecy: that the final fight between the Apache and America would be for our religion." On one side are jobs and millions of dollars, though within the context that mining operations have an expiration date, in this case likely four decades, and that the Arizona landscape is littered with ghost towns, examples of what happens after the boom goes bust. On the other side are ancient spiritual values and traditions that long predate the intrusion of white settlers and their mistreatment of those who had preceded them. Amid the gorgeous illustrations, Redniss provides plenty of historical context about how the American government has violated its own agreements with those tribes—and how it continues to do so. Yet the author refuses to oversimplify, giving voice to those who feel that standing in the way of progress simply perpetuates so many of the problems endemic to communities who have suffered such abuse.

As a work of advocacy, the book is compelling and convincing; as a work of art, it is masterful.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173349828
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	11/17/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

Copper is produced in massive stars and flung out into space as those stars explode. 

We look into the night sky; the heavens appear still and quiet. But as you gaze upward, you are a distant witness to cataclysmic violence. Each glittering star is a cauldron of nuclear fusion reactions many light years away. The light we see is the release of energy as the star fuses hydrogen into helium. When a star runs out of hydrogen to fuse, it surrenders to gravity and begins to contract. The star’s core becomes hotter and denser. This heat and pressure spur further nuclear reactions, forming elements of increasingly higher mass. As a large star burns through all the energy it can generate from fusion, its core tightens into a blazingly hot fist of iron.

The star implodes, then rebounds outward, forming a supernova, an explosion bright enough to outshine entire galaxies. The star is dying, collapsing in on itself at velocities of up to 70,000 kilometers per second and spewing dense clouds of hot gas into space at a third of the speed of light, driving a shock wave dozens of light years across. A supernova has the power to forge metallic elements, and as it explodes, it expels these elements into space. In these dense molecular clouds, new stars and planets form.

Some four and a half billion years ago, one of those new stars was our Sun. As cosmic debris orbited the nascent Sun, particles began clumping together, becoming asteroids, planetesimals, and, finally, over millions of years, planets, including Planet Earth.

Young Earth was a seething ball of molten rock and metal. Comets, meteors, and asteroids crashed into the new planet. Eventually, Earth’s surface began to cool and solidify. Water vapor and ice became oceans. Continents collided, were torn asunder, slid past each other, were re-formed. Molten rock known as magma churned under Earth’s surface. Magma that spews from Earth in a volcanic eruption is called lava. Magma can also crystallize underground over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. Most magmas cool into common granites, but a small percentage concentrates metals to form an ore deposit.

Ore deposits contain coveted minerals, including gold, silver, iron, and copper. Humans have mined these materials for millennia. Today we use mined metals in construction and manufacturing, in medical devices and in agriculture, in power generation and telecommunications. In the twenty-first century, the ore close to Earth’s surface has mostly been harvested, so we dig ever deeper to access what remains.

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