Becoming Kin

An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future

By: Patty Krawec, Nick Estes - foreword

Narrated by: Patty Krawec

Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

The invented history of the Western world is crumbling fast, Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec says, but we can still honor the bonds between us. Settlers dominated and divided, but Indigenous peoples won't just send them all "home."

Weaving her own story with the story of her ancestors and with the broader themes of creation, replacement, and disappearance, Krawec helps listeners see settler colonialism through the eyes of an Indigenous writer. Settler colonialism tried to force us into one particular way of living, but the old ways of kinship can help us imagine a different future. Krawec asks, What would it look like to remember that we are all related? How might we become better relatives to the land, to one another, and to Indigenous movements for solidarity? Braiding together historical, scientific, and cultural analysis, Indigenous ways of knowing, and the vivid threads of communal memory, Krawec crafts a stunning, forceful call to "unforget" our history.

This remarkable sojourn through Native and settler history, myth, identity, and spirituality helps us retrace our steps and pick up what was lost along the way: chances to honor rather than violate treaties, to see the land as a relative rather than a resource, and to unravel the history we have been taught.

©2022 Patty Krawec (P)2022 Tantor

Well done

Really enjoyed this book. The narration was good and easy to understand. A very moving piece of history.

Best book I’ve read this year!

As an Afro-indigenous person this book spoke to me on so many levels. This book is beneficial for Natives and non-natives alike to show how we can become each others kin and support each other. Beautifully written.

Fantastic

The content in this book is important to heal ourselves, our nation, and more importantly return to what we threw away in human society.

Connecting to my ancestors to stand up for my kin

This book informed, challenged and entertained me. I have a better understanding of indigenous nations I knew by name alone, and also got action items about how to better advocate and ally for my own tribe and other marginalized communities.

Thank you for turning my world upside down!

Without the least bit of self righteousness Krawec remarkably takes the listener on a journey of self-examination and discovery related to what it means to become kin and how to get there. The first step? Stop and listen.
Throughout my AP senior English class fifty years ago, we discussed “man’s inhumanity to man” as exemplified in The Grapes of Wrath, never touching on the inhumanity in the Joad family’s sense of entitlement to the land “because grandpa had killed Indians for it.” I will do better in my listening for ways in which I can do better.

Relearning History

In the syllabus of “How to be a Good Human,” this book would be required reading. Krawec gently, but unflinchingly, tells the story of US and Canada’s indigenous history — one that goes much deeper than simply charting the Trail of Tears. With nuance and care, the author invites us to reckon with settler colonialism and see history through this lens. Such a good, hard, soulful read.

Poorly written

The narration voice and pace were good. The writing and narrative, however, were poorly delivered. The book was not written in an engaging way that is thought provoking. Unlike other books on the subject, like Breading sweetgrass, this book mostly points at problems without pointing at solutions for a better future in a positive light.