Sasha LaPointe: The 'reservation riot grrrl' who's learning to be a 'language warrior'

The KUOW Book Club read "Thunder Song" by Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe in March. LaPointe joined KUOW's Katie Campbell live at Seattle Central Library last week to talk about being a Coast Salish punk and following in the footsteps of her iconic great-grandmother, Vi taqʷšəblu Hilbert.

This was the second of four live author conversations KUOW is hosting in partnership with the Seattle Public Library. Listen to the conversation below or find it in the "Meet Me Here" feed on the KUOW app or wherever you get your podcasts.

S

asha taqʷšəblu LaPointe says she's not yet a "language warrior," not like her great-grandmother, her namesake, Vi taqʷšəblu Hilbert. Hilbert worked to revitalize the Lushootseed language. LaPointe is not fluent in the traditional language, though she is learning.

"It's hard to know how privileged you are when you're in it. ... When I use the word privilege, know that it is more of like a cultural privilege, having the language around me. I was just, like, immersed in it," she said when we spoke at the library. "I'm baby-stepping towards language warrior. Maybe by the next book, I'll be one."

Whether she is one already is for her to decide, but after spending time with her books and with LaPointe herself, I'm convinced she has achieved language warriorhood.

RELATED: Subscribe to the KUOW Book Club newsletter here

Like the punk music that made her want to be a "reservation riot grrrl" in the '90s, LaPointe's writing is raw, cutting down misconceptions about who gets to belong to a community. Her identity as a punk, as a Native woman, as a queer "high femme" person has been challenged. The essays in "Thunder Song" document her journey to becoming "loud and proud."

"I'm allowed to be mixed heritage. I'm allowed to be Coast Salish. I'm allowed to be a punk. I'm allowed to eat salmon," she said.

There was a time when she didn't eat salmon, drawn into a vegan lifestyle that was, like the punk scene, dominated by white ideas of what it meant to eat responsibly. Refusing salmon at gatherings irked family members, like her uncle who once asked her, "What kind of Indian are you?" He'd gifted LaPointe a king salmon, plopping the large fish into her teenage arms, and she'd said she couldn't eat it.

His question haunted her until she was able to answer in the essay "First Salmon Ceremony":

"It took a long time, but my uncle dropping this 50-pound, massive king salmon into my 17-year-old arms in the snow on Christmas stayed with me, planted this seed. Anytime I'd go to a vegan potluck after that or vegan brunch, I'd be like, in the back of my head, 'Girl, you are supposed to be eating fish. You come from salmon people.' I made peace with that, and now I eat fish all the time — sustainably and wild caught, obviously."

RELATED: Author Coll Thrush interprets PNW history through the wreckage of colonialism

"Thunder Song" is full of these moments, cringey or awkward or confusing for a young LaPointe.

There were the white women outside a venue in Chicago who tried to get LaPointe's band kicked off the bill after they saw her wearing red paint.

There was the mother-in-law who was offended by the smell of the fish dip LaPointe made, using her grandmother's recipe.

And there was the girl who loudly made fun of the jacket her mother had hand-painted "The Little Mermaid" on, because they couldn't afford the one at the Disney store.

Yes, there are plenty of tough times recounted in "Thunder Song," especially when LaPointe was a "teenage brat and teenage runaway" — as her dad likes to say when she was "off being all crazy."

But there are beautiful stories, too, of finding herself and her people, including her partner, who was in the audience as we spoke.

"As someone coming from surviving sexual violence at an early age, surviving sexual assault, like, throughout my life at different times, the phrase 'I love you' is a really tricky thing for me," LaPointe said. "I don't love it. It doesn't come out easily. It comes out kind of clunky. And when I was first falling in love with my partner, I didn't want to say it. ... In the English language, 'I love you' just translates to one thing. And I think the idea of loving someone is so complex, and we love at different degrees, and we love with different desires. The fact that our language provides different ways to say, it made my little, like, trauma baby heart feel so at home."

See what I mean? That's some "language warrior" work being done right there.

LaPointe's a hard act to follow — she was truly rad to read, talk to, and spend some time with — but our next featured author can do it.

On April 23, I'll be continuing our live speaker series with Molly Olguín and her debut short-story collection, "The Sea Gives Up the Dead." It's blend of queer themes and fantasy should make for a special read after LaPointe's essays.

RSVP HERE.

RELATED: Cozy reader winter: Join KUOW Book Club, Seattle Public Library for live author talks