Asegi Stories: Cherokee Queer and Two-Spirit Memory

This was a slow start for me, but the momentum kept building and I felt inspired and lucky to be reading this by the end. This is despite the subject matter but because of Driskill's handling of it: their central thesis is that settler-colonialism needed to erase Cherokee queerness (of both gender and sexual orientation, which are themselves hegemonic ways of thinking about human behavior) in order to carry out the colonial project, in conjunction with the promotion of chattel slavery and lateral oppression. Even still! Queer and Two-Spirit memory and energy persists and can point a way toward a decolonial future. Driskill is so expansive in their scope, captured beautifully by a quote in the introduction: “Because if you can see that far into the past, you can see that far into the future.” I love the phantom of memory they make space for in revisiting the historical record, and the voices of queer Cherokee activists at the end. These are connected by Driskill's double-walled basket metaphor, because there is space hidden between the walls that can be revealed if the weaver chooses to undo and then reweave their work.