In twelve essays, each dedicated to a tree significant to Minnesota, Murphy tells the story of the grove that, long before the Irish arrived, was home to three Native tribes: the Dakota, Ojibwe, and Ho-Chunk. She notes devastating strategies employed by the U.S. government to wrest the land from the tribes, but also revisits iconic American tales that subtly continue to promote this displacementthe Thanksgiving story, the Paul Bunyan myth, and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books. Murphy travels to Ireland to search out another narrative long hiddenthat of her great-great-grandmother’s transformative journey from North Tipperary to The Maples.
In retrieving these stories, White Birch, Red Hawthorn uncovers lingering wounds of the pastand the possibility that, through connection to this suffering, healing can follow. The next step is simple, Murphy tells us: listen.
In twelve essays, each dedicated to a tree significant to Minnesota, Murphy tells the story of the grove that, long before the Irish arrived, was home to three Native tribes: the Dakota, Ojibwe, and Ho-Chunk. She notes devastating strategies employed by the U.S. government to wrest the land from the tribes, but also revisits iconic American tales that subtly continue to promote this displacementthe Thanksgiving story, the Paul Bunyan myth, and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books. Murphy travels to Ireland to search out another narrative long hiddenthat of her great-great-grandmother’s transformative journey from North Tipperary to The Maples.
In retrieving these stories, White Birch, Red Hawthorn uncovers lingering wounds of the pastand the possibility that, through connection to this suffering, healing can follow. The next step is simple, Murphy tells us: listen.
White Birch, Red Hawthorn: A Memoir
152White Birch, Red Hawthorn: A Memoir
152Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781517901325 |
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Publisher: | University of Minnesota Press |
Publication date: | 04/18/2017 |
Pages: | 152 |
Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.70(d) |