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If you\u2019re familiar with the island of Martha\u2019s Vineyard, you might think of it first and foremost as a summer vacation destination for the wealthy and famous. You might know that it\u2019s beloved for its beautiful beaches and quaint architecture. You might even have heard that it was named after a British explorer\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n
But the island had a name long before British explorers \u201cdiscovered\u201d it \u2014 Noepe, or \u201ca still place among the currents.\u201d And it\u2019s far more than just a tourist destination for the people who have called it home for centuries: the Aquinnah Wampanoag.<\/p>\n
In his new book, Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity<\/a>, Joseph Lee, a former Grist fellow and member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe, uses his own experience as a jumping-off point to delve into the stories of Indigenous peoples all over the country, and the world. The book explores what it means to be Indigenous and how this identity is wrapped up in relationship to land.<\/p>\n For Lee, Martha\u2019s Vineyard is both a homeland and a complicated source of identity \u2014 a place where he spent his summers attending a tribal camp, working in his family\u2019s souvenir shop, and even participating in performances of Wampanoag legends for paying tourists. In the book, he discusses how he has grappled with colonialism and found ways to embrace his heritage, as he learned more about his own tribe and the stories of other tribes.<\/p>\n Lee discussed some of the book\u2019s themes with Grist\u2019s Anita Hofschneider<\/a>, who hails from another often-misunderstood island: Guam. We\u2019re sharing their Q&A in this week\u2019s newsletter, which covers the tension that tourism and climate impacts bring to Indigenous land struggles, and why it\u2019s important to grapple with the nuances of Indigenous identity \u2014 especially so in the era of climate change. Their interview was condensed and edited for clarity.<\/p>\n \u2014 Claire Elise Thompson<\/p>\n Rising seas, vanishing voices: An Indigenous story from Martha\u2019s Vineyard<\/p>\n Anita Hofschneider: How would you describe the connection between Indigenous identity and climate change?<\/p>\n Joseph Lee: When you talk about Indigenous people, you have to talk about land. And right now, when you\u2019re talking about land in any context, climate change is the looming backdrop. So many of the challenges Indigenous communities are facing may not be outwardly related to climate change, but they\u2019re impacted by climate change. Fighting for water rights, which I would say is a sovereignty fight and a political fight, is made more difficult and the stakes are higher because of drought. Tensions around land ownership and what we do with our land are also made more complicated by climate impacts like rising sea levels and stronger storms that are eating away at our land. If you\u2019re fighting over land and land you\u2019re fighting over is shrinking because sea levels are rising, it makes that fight much more intense and much more urgent. You could look at salmon and the right to protect salmon and for subsistence lifestyles and all that\u2019s becoming more complicated not just because of overfishing but because the way that salmon and other fish are impacted by warming waters and climate change. Any area of the story that you\u2019re looking at, climate change is present.<\/p>\n AH: I also grew up on an island that is a tourism hub, and in so many communities that\u2019s often perceived as the only viable economic driver. Can you talk about what it feels like to be Indigenous in a land that\u2019s become a tourist destination, and how that affects our communities?<\/p>\n JL: In this country, one part of the experience of being Indigenous is the experience of erasure and of being ignored. That\u2019s throughout history, through culture, through politics, through all these spaces. But I think especially in a place like Martha\u2019s Vineyard, it\u2019s even more extreme because the reputation of the place is so big and so specific. Being Indigenous, people are really often not listening to you. The more your land becomes a tourist destination, the harder it is for Indigenous voices to be heard, the harder it is for Indigenous people to hold onto the land.<\/p>\n In a very concrete way, tourism typically drives property values up. It drives taxes up. And that makes it harder for folks to hold on to land that\u2019s been in the family for generations. And that\u2019s what\u2019s happened in Martha\u2019s Vineyard. Beyond that, I think tourism is just a really, really difficult and unfortunate choice that people have been kind of forced into. When so much opportunity has been taken away or denied from Indigenous communities in these places, tourism is often the only thing that\u2019s left. So it can become like a choice between having nothing and contributing to tourism, which is probably ultimately harming the community and the land, but there\u2019s no other way to make a living. So I think that\u2019s just a really unfortunate reality.<\/p>\n AH: There\u2019s a part in the book where you\u2019re talking about how every time you say you\u2019re from Martha\u2019s Vineyard, people either assume you\u2019re really rich or they think, \u201cOh, I didn\u2019t realize that people live there.\u201d And that really resonated with me because when I say I\u2019m from Saipan or Guam, people either don\u2019t know what it is or they assume, \u201cOh, are you military?\u201d And then when I say I\u2019m not military, they are confused. This is a long way of asking, what do you want people to know about your community and your tribe in particular, separate from the broader journey of this book? Is there anything that you wish people knew that this book could convey so that other tribal members don\u2019t have to be on the receiving end of that question?<\/p>\n JL: First, I hope that this will help to change the narrative of erasure that has existed about Wampanoag people for most of this country\u2019s history. At the very least, I hope this helps people know that we exist \u2014 we\u2019re here. And also, I like to think that it helps to show some of the complexity and diversity of my community: that we have disagreements, we have different perspectives, we have different talents, we live in different places.<\/p>\n Something else that your question made me think of was the question of audience. And I thought about that a lot. Even growing up within the tribe, there was so much just about my own community that I didn\u2019t know. And so I try not to be judgmental of what people know, whether they\u2019re Indigenous or not. And that\u2019s how I really wanted to approach the book. I would hope that Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers can get something out of it, both in terms of learning things, but also hopefully seeing themselves in the pages and this exploration of figuring out who we are and where we want our community to go.<\/p>\n AH: Another part that really resonated with me and I think a lot of Indigenous readers will relate to is the struggle of what does it mean to be Indigenous if you aren\u2019t living on your land. I was wondering what you hope Indigenous readers will take away from the book in terms of understanding what distance from their land can mean for their identity. <\/p>\n JL: I hope that Indigenous readers will discover what I\u2019ve discovered, which is that there are so many ways to engage with your homelands and your home community, even if you don\u2019t live there. I used to think that I was only engaging if I was there with the tribe doing some cultural tribal event or something, and I realized that there are so many other ways of engaging. I don\u2019t think any of us are less Indigenous because we live somewhere else.<\/p>\n For a long time I felt like if it wasn\u2019t perfect, it wasn\u2019t worth it. If it wasn\u2019t the perfect ideal of me participating in the tribe, I thought I shouldn\u2019t do it. Ultimately what that led to is I just wasn\u2019t doing anything because I didn\u2019t have as many opportunities to go to these tribal gatherings or participate in tribal politics. And so I just did nothing, and I felt the distance sort of growing over the years. What other people can do is realize that there are all these small ways to engage and to try to embrace those, and not let ideas of what it means to be Indigenous be defined by outsiders, or these big colonial structures like federal recognition, for example, or blood quantum.<\/p>\n AH: Why? What\u2019s at stake? Why do you think it\u2019s important for folks to embrace Indigenous identity and why is it important, particularly at this moment? <\/p>\n JL: Circling back to what we talked about at the beginning, we\u2019re not going to be able to address these huge existential crises like climate change if we can\u2019t be at least in some way united as a community, as a people. If we\u2019re always fighting over who belongs and what does it mean to be Indigenous and saying that people are less Indigenous because of XYZ, that takes away our ability to tackle those bigger challenges. Right now we\u2019re facing these serious challenges and that\u2019s what we should be dealing with, so figuring this out is the first step.<\/p>\n \u2014 Anita Hofschneider<\/p>\n More exposure<\/p>\n A parting shot<\/p>\n As part of his reporting for the book, Lee traveled to California and Oregon to meet with tribal members who were preparing for the largest dam removal in U.S.history \u2014 a major victory for the tribes\u2019 fishing rights and the health of the land. \u201cI had gone into the week thinking I was going to learn about sovereignty,\u201d Lee writes, \u201cand I definitely had, but I was also realizing all the different ways that Indigenous people had relationships with the land. Every relationship was unique and complex.\u201d<\/p>\n Learn more about the decades-long battle behind the removal of the Klamath River dams in this epic feature by Anita Hofschneider and Jake Bittle<\/a>. The photo below shows Leaf Hillman, one of the key removal advocates from the Karuk Tribe, embracing his family as they watch the deconstruction of the Iron Gate dam \u2014 the largest of the four dams on the Klamath River \u2014 last August.<\/p>\n![\"-----\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Fix_Newsletter_Squiggle.png\")
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