Best Of: Actor Leslie Uggams / Martha's Vineyard's Indigenous Past & Present

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From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley.
Today, actor and singer Leslie Uggams talks about her remarkable career, which started when she was six. By age nine, she was performing at the Apollo.
She won a Tony for her performance in the 1967 civil rights musical Hallelujah Baby, and soon after became the first black woman to host a TV variety show. In the 1977 TV miniseries Roots, she played Kunta Kinte's daughter.
And more recently, she's co-starred in Empire, American Fiction, and the Deadpool films. Also, journalist Joseph Lee talks about what it means to be a member of the Aquanah Wampanoag tribe from Martha's Vineyard.
His new book, Nothing More of This Land, peels back the postcard image of Martha's Vineyard to reveal a powerful story of indigenous identity and survival. That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend.
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This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley.
Terry has our first interview. I'll let her introduce it.
My guest Leslie Uggams was first considered remarkable for starting her performing career when she was six. Now she's considered remarkable as one of the actors still active at the age of 82.
She's in an episode of the new season of HBO's The Gilded Age.

She's played Blind Al in the Deadpool films. In the Oscar-winning 2023 film American Fiction, she played the mother whose dementia progresses through the film.
In the series Empire, she was the mother of the main character, Lucius Lyon. Going back to the beginning, when she was six, She was featured in a 1950 episode of Beulah, the ABC series starring Ethel Waters as a wise maid in the home of a white family.
Uggams played Beulah's niece. Soon after, Uggams started singing at the Apollo, where she met luminaries like Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.
She became a regular on the CBS music variety show Sing Along with Mitch. In 1967, she starred in the Broadway civil rights musical Hallelujah Baby.
She won a Tony and the show won one for Best Musical. Another achievement, she was the first black woman and the second black person after Nat Cole to host her own TV variety show.
Leslie Uggams, welcome to Fresh Air. It's a pleasure to have you on the show.
Thank you. Good to be here.
So what is it like for you now being remarkable for performing professionally at such a young age when you were six and now being remarkable because you're in so many things at the age of 82? What's weird about it for me is I never think about that. I just think, what's my next gig?

I mean, that's how I've always been.

And then I realize when I run into so many different people and they go, oh, you're such an icon.

And I go, I guess I am.

I've been doing this a long time.

But I always think in terms of I'm working, baby.

I'm happy. That's a good attitude.
I have to say in Deadpool it is so surprising to hear you use expletives and synonyms for cocaine. How did they think of you for that? What made them think Leslie Uggams will be perfect for this? Well, the funniest thing about it is that I happened to be in Florida doing MAME.
And my agent called me and said, I have an audition for you for a movie. So I got the script and I read it and I didn't understand what the heck was going on.

All I knew is that she kept falling a lot.

Oh, you didn't know she was blind?

Had no idea. I mean, when you do these kind of superhero kind of things, everything's encrypted because it's all so hush-hush that you don't know until the last minute yourself what the heck is going on.
And so I had to figure it all out myself. Luckily, I figured it right because when I finished filming the first one, Ryan came to me.
He said, oh, I just love you. He said, you had such energy when you did the audition.
I thought to myself, I had no idea what I was doing. Did it feel good to use a lot of expletives? Well, you know, it's a character.
It's not me. I'm not a toilet mouth kind of person.
I haven't heard that expression in a long time, toilet mouth. So, I mean, it's the character.
And, of course, she has a lot to cuss about because she can't say anything. And she's kind of ticked off about the whole thing.
But I think what really got me the part is my interview with the director, the first director, Tim Miller, who we sat down and we talked and everything. And he was asking me about my background.
And in talking to him, I said a word, and he looked at me and said, I love the way you say that word. And the next thing I know, I was doing a screen test, and the next thing I know, I was in the movie.
So you're about to be in The Gilded Age in Episode 7. Yes.
And this is the HBO series about the culture clash between people with old money and people with new money and where prosperous black people fit in or don't fit in into that culture. Can you tell us something about your character? Or is that hush hush? She is a busybody.
She likes to stir the pot. Which she does.
Okay. Do you know what was happening in your family during the period the Gilded Age is set, which is the late 1800s? Well, I know from my grandmother on my mother's side, her mother, there were 10 children.
They were all fathered by the plantation owner. The plantation owner built a house on his property for the 10 children, which my grandmother was one of them.
And they were highly educated. They looked like white people.
And they all were doctors, dentists, teachers, principals. And when my grandmother used to visit me and my mother and father, nobody in my neighborhood realized that I was walking with my grandmother because she looked like a white woman.
So it was, what I love about the new storyline is that there was the dark-skinned situation, and then there was the high, yellow, that they would call them when my mother was a kid, situation. And they're addressing that in Gilded Age, which is wonderful because the storyline is right on the mark when it comes to who came from slaves, who was highly educated and had mixed blood.
So it's a good season. It's a good season.
So you must have really related when you played Kizzy in Roots because when she is sold to a different plantation owner,

played by Chuck Connors, he comes into her cabin frequently and rapes her. And her son is his son.
So did you already know about your family history when you played that role? Well, you know, it's very interesting. They didn't talk about a lot.
They talked about the stuff that they had. They being your family? The family, yeah.
But they never talked about those situations of being raped or anything like that because they were educated on the plantation. They had teachers and stuff to teach them there, so they didn't have that.
But I could relate to what was going on in that story very much because you don't have any say-so in anything. And first it'll be torn away from your family is you know.
I find it hard today when I see what's going on here in our beautiful America, and all of a sudden you've got people being torn away from their family. The pain of that, all I can say that when I played that part, it was very easy to play that scene because you thought, well, she's got Missy.
That's her best friend, Missy, who was breaking the rules and taught her how to read. And then because she taught how to read, she helps the boyfriend on the plantation get this pass.
And then he gets caught and then everything comes out. But she's going to protect

me. And I found out not only was she not going to protect me, she was ticked off because I did this.
And so to punish me, she just said to her uncle, go ahead, let her go. She was a white girl who you thought of, you know, Kizzy thought of as her best friend.
Yeah. But she was from the slaveholder's family and wanted –

Yeah. But she was from the slaveholders family and wanted, when she returns to the plantation, she wants Kizzy to be her personal slave and how wonderful it'll be for, you know, for Kizzy to be her personal slave and move away from her family to this other plantation.
Yeah. So you've said that if you knew about that scene, when you accepted the role, you might not have taken it because playing that scene where you're taken away by the new plantation owner, that it was, yeah, that was so horrible.
Talk about why it had such an impact on you that you wouldn't have even taken the role. Well, because, well, first of all, thank God I knew Sandy Duncan.
We had been friends before because otherwise I never would have spoken to her again. Sandy Duncan played the white girl who wanted to have you as her personal slave.
Yes, yes. And I remember when we finished the scene, there was such a hush.

I was still hysterical from it and everything. Yeah, because you had to be hysterical when they were taking your character away.
And what happened was nobody wanted to talk to Sandy because they were just horrified and they kind of looked at her with different eyes. And she'll tell you she's sorry that she ever did that part because that scene was just horrifying.
And she turned out. Yeah, she's watching you and doesn't intervene at all.
Yeah, she's looking out the window and just watching the whole thing. It was tough.
Thank God I didn't have to shoot anymore for the rest of the day because I wouldn't have been able to. I came home, and my husband looked at me and said, Okay, you've had a rough day.
And I had a glass of wine and got in the bathtub and just tried to get my thoughts together. And then later on, I called my mother and said, How could this happen? And, you know, I had a conversation with her, and she said that's the way things were back in Grandma's day, and we talked about it, but it was rough.
We're listening to Terry's interview with singer and actor Leslie Uggams. We'll hear more of their conversation after a break.
I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. Support for NPR and the following message come from IXL Online.
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Go to shopify.com slash NPR to take your business to the next level today. So you had a remarkable childhood.
Let's start with your aunt, Eloise Uggam. She was a dancer at the Cotton Club.
No, no, no, no. My mother was a dancer at the Cotton Club.
Your mother was a dancer at the Cotton Club. She didn't last long because she said they didn't pay enough money and she wasn't Lena Horne.
Ah, well, yes. Only Lena Horne was Lena Horne.
Yes. And my aunt Eloise, though, was a wonderful, beautiful singer on Broadway.
She did shows like St. Louis Woman with Pearl Bailey, and she was in Porgie and Bess.
And she traveled all over the world doing Porgie and Bess. She was also in the USO.
She did a lot of things, but she was the one that introduced me to a lot of classical music when I was a kid. So having a career as a performer was something that was within reach because you'd seen it in your own family.
Kind of, sort of. My father was not thrilled about show business, even though his sister, you know, had been in Broadway shows.
He just thought, you know, the kind of loose women. My aunt never married, so he was kind of like, okay, well, she can sing.
It wasn't really until I did sing along with Mitch that he went, oh, well, I guess she might be having a career in show business. Because up until then, his thing was he wanted me to go to college and get an education.
Which you did. You went to Juilliard.
Well, I went to Juilliard for a short period of time because then I got famous because of Sing Along With Mitch. And then the schedule got too crazy for me to do it full time.
Okay. So before we get to performing on television, let's get to the Apollo Theater.
Yes. So you started singing there.
Nine years old. I was nine.
Nine years old. Okay.
Okay. So was this a talent competition or were you just like a featured performer? No.
What happened was the Schiffmans who ran the Apollo Theater had a radio show,

and it was a contest, and they would have a celebrity introduce a young talent,

and there was a woman named Thelma Carpenter.

She introduced me on the radio show, and it was a contest,

and I kept winning every week. And it really got to the

point where they could not get rid of me. So the Schiffmans decided to do an act, pay for an act

for me, and for me to play the Apollo. So they paid for everything.
I did a 20-minute act

and made my debut at the Apollo Theater with the great Louis Armstrong.

What a gift.

Hello.

What did you pick up from Armstrong about singing?

He had such a perfect sense of rhythm.

Oh, I loved him.

I watched every single performance.

I had a little nook on the stage of the Apollo where I could watch everything, and I would watch him every single show. First of all, he was so loved.
He had that kind of warmth that when you sat in the audience, you could feel it from him. He had fabulous musicians when we played at the Apollo.
And I was always curious about what makes the magic happen between the artist and the audience. And I figured out that you know that you have the audience when they're sitting in their seats, and all of a sudden they start moving forward without them realizing that they are moving forward because they're so captured by what you're doing and into what you're doing.
And so I learn a lot from him. But, you know, I mentioned Armstrong's sense of rhythm.
His sense of rhythm was always surprising. Like he would hold notes you wouldn't expect.
Well, musicians, you know, they have that. And he was so behind the beat.
It was like the most relaxed rhythm. And it influenced everybody.
Yeah, he had that. And then the next person I worked with was Ella Fitzgerald.
And boy, was that another gift. And I watched her shows, every single show.
And she'd just walk out there and open her mouth, and you'd go crazy. And she was very quiet when we were backstage.
In fact, I worked with her. It was during the summertime.
And I used to play hopscotch in front of the stage door. And she'd take a chair, and she'd sit out there with my mother.
And they'd watch me Hopscotch. And then the good human truck would come.
Good human truck would come and she'd buy me ice cream because she thought I was too skinny. She was always trying to fatten me up.
So, you know, I'm wondering if like class was really confusing to you when you were young because on the one hand, you know, you have relatives, your aunt was, you know, in show business, had a very successful career. There were professionals in your family, you know, like doctors and teachers, as we've said.
Was economic class confusing to you since you traveled through two different worlds? Well, it wasn't confusing. I just realized that some people were living a better life, and this was my goal to live a better life.
One of my best friends at school at PCS used to hang out all the time, and she lived on Central Park West in this building where the elevator opened up into her living room. And I was like, oh, my gosh.
I think I would like something like this. And I didn't see any cockroaches as well.
And I'm like, this is the life. How do I get to have this? Were you plagued by cockroaches? Oh, God, yes.
Are you kidding? They were pets. It was their apartment.
We only lived there. But, I mean, so I didn't move out of my neighborhood until I was 18, and that was because of Sing Along with Mitch, and I got popular, and we could afford to move.
And that changed my life as far as, oh, wow, this is great. I like living like this.
But up to then, you know, we lived, walked up three flights of steps, and there was no elevator, and there was no air conditioning. You opened the window when you wanted air.
If you're lucky, you had screens. And so, yes, I was very aware of the different life I was living.
But I'll have to tell you a funny story. In the school was also Mary Martin's daughter, Hela, Hela Holiday.
And she and I became best friends. And she had this chaperone that was always with her.
And we got to be very close. And so I had been invited to her place.
Her parents stayed at one of the hotels, very big hotels in New York at the time, because Mary Martin was always doing a musical on Broadway. And so I invited her up to my place.
And so they came up to my area, hung out with us. Of course, every kid in my neighborhood all of a sudden was out there on the sidewalk seeing this white girl with a chaperone hanging out with me.
And she had the best time ever because it was a park right across the street from where I lived. So we hung out in the park, and we had a wonderful day.
And I look back and I think, see, I was proud of where I was living. No matter what, it was home.
And she enjoyed that. So moving on in your career, you had a variety show, the Leslie Uggam show starting in 1969.
And your show replaced the Smothers Brothers show. The Smothers Brothers show was canceled because of how controversial it was.
Pete Seeger sang an anti-Vietnam War song on it. And there's a lot of like, you know, counterculture comedy on it.
And the network was not ready for that. So your show comes along.
And I think it's like your opening episode. Your guest star is Sly and the Family Stone.
Yes, I maneuvered that. That was you who maneuvered that? Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.
CBS didn't know what hit them. I can imagine.
Why did you choose Sly? Because I was a big fan of Sly and the Family Stone. My husband and I had seen them in Vegas when I was playing at one of the hotels down there, and we went to a place after the show to go dancing, and there was Sly and the Family Stone, and we went, whoa, they're fabulous.
And then shortly after that, they had, you know, start having hit records. And so they were like at the top of my list, because that was the music that was happening.
And it was a black artist who who were doing it. And it was called the Leslie Uggam Show.
So we're going to have some black people on the show besides just me. We became successful more than they thought it was going to be.
but they had no plans for me to stay having this show.

But we had 10 weeks of great, great times, great, great times.

um because you had so many breakthroughs in your career i'm wondering what your reaction is now to the Trump administration trying to basically do away with all DEI initiatives that they possibly can.

I'm not happy. I'm not happy.
I'm shocked, quite frankly. I've seen a lot of things in my lifetime.
But I'm waiting for America to come back for us to get our senses together because it's just—how can I express it?

Everybody can relate to the arts.

It's the one moment where you can go see your favorite person, listen to your favorite person. It brings joy.
In my head, I go to sleep with music in my head and I wake up with music in my head. It's a universal language.
You don't have to speak the language. You just have to hear the beautiful sounds that someone is making.
and to not get these opportunities and try to get rid of diversity and think that there's something wrong with that, I just don't get it. I don't get it.
Leslie Uggams, it's just really been a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much.
Thank you. It's been a wonderful time being with you today.
Leslie Uggams spoke with Terry Gross. Summer is here, and our rock critic Ken Tucker thinks the sound of summer is the sound of women who've had it with problematic men.
He's focusing on the ban Heim, consisting of three sisters, as well as a pop singer who's emerged from TikTok fame, Addison Rae. They all practice what Ken is calling emotional passive resistance.
Here's Addison Rae. Put your headphones on.
Yes, I gotta accept the the pain Need a cigarette to make me feel better Every good thing comes my way So I still get told up I guess I gotta accept the pain Need a cigarette to make me feel better Every good thing comes my way So I I put my headphones on. Listen to my favorite song.
It may be that the mood of summer 2025, the vibe if you will, is defined by Addison Rae's song, Headphones On. Over a dreamlike swirl of keyboards and light percussion,

Ray sings,

Guess I Gotta Accept the Pain.

Then she puts her headphones on

and uses the music to drown out all the bad stuff happening

to her and the world all around her. Need a cigarette to make me feel better Every good thing comes my way So I still get told up Guess I gotta accept the pain Need a cigarette to make me feel better Every good thing comes my way So I put my head on my head Addison Rae is a TikTok famous dancer who's parlayed her influencer influence into a pop music career.
And there are a couple of songs on her new album, called Addison, that capture the zeitgeist. During a recent BBC radio performance, the three sisters who formed the band Haim did a cover of Headphones On that both acknowledged Rae's cleverness and then surpassed it musically, which is only what I'd expect from Chaim,

which has just released some of the best music of the group's career. I'm on the next flight.
You can't talk me out of it. Yeah.
From the window seat, I can see the street Where we used to sleep It was all a dream You thought I would fall Back in your arms But I lost my heart And the future's gone with it. Oh, I bet you wish it could be easy to change my mind.
Oh, I bet you wish it could be easy, but it's not this I ain't coming back That's Down to be Wrong, which, along with the new album's title, I Quit, presents Hayam's thesis that sometimes the most productive thing you can do is to decide to do nothing. Over Alana Hayam's thick guitar lick, Esty's pulsing bass, and Danielle's slamming drums, the band plays with the notion that letting a mediocre relationship die, not working strenuously to repair it, is healthy, its own act of assurance and assertiveness.
Like Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener, Haim finds power in simply saying, I would prefer not to. Maybe that decision will

prove to be a mistake, but as they sing, down to be wrong, don't need to be right. And yet,

I should hasten to add, it's not as if the Haim sisters never feel any pain, as on this song, Cry. Seven stages of grief And I don't know which I'm on I'm past the anger, past the rage But the hurt ain't gone You just told me what I wanted to hear Never gave me more than almost nothing, honey, year after year.

And I just wish that I could hate you how I want to, but baby, I can't.

So I just cry, cry, and I don't know why.

I just cry, cry when I realize With its lush harmonic hook, cry is classic rock. It's like a great song by the Eagles, if the Eagles ever had one moment of genuine curiosity about women.
And it's not as though everything here is about sad, mad, or bad decisions. Sometimes it's a celebration of things going romantically very right.
Your place or my place, it doesn't matter to me. Your lips, my tongue, they're intertwined.
You want us locked in and I'll give you my sympathy But that's one thing I want to find So take off your clothes Haim revitalizes that old slogan of baby boomer feminism, sisterhood is powerful, and extends it by reaching out to a young act like Addison Rae, offering encouragement and comradeship. And so whether it's Addison noise-canceling her pain, or Haim telling a useless boyfriend, I quit, this is the summer of emotional passive resistance, and it sounds very tempting.
Ken Tucker reviewed new music by Haim and Addison Rae. Coming up, journalist Joseph Lee talks about what it means to be a member of the Aquana Wampanoag tribe from Martha's Vineyard.
I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Sutter Health.
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T's and C's apply. Martha's Vineyard, just seven miles off the coast of Massachusetts, is an island known for its windswept beaches, clay cliffs, and cedar-shingled cottages.
It's a place synonymous with presidential vacations, sailboats bobbing in the harbor, affluent visitors, and shops selling pearls and polo shirts. But underneath that postcard-perfect image lies a much older story, one that debut author Joseph Lee uncovers in his new book, Nothing More This Land, Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity.
As a member of the Aquana Wampanoag Nation, Lee takes readers beyond the celebrity summer scene and into the heart of Noepe, the name his people have called the island for centuries. Lee begins the book with the legend of Moshe, a giant whose toe is said to have carved the island from the sea and whose whale hunts left the cliffs of Aquana stained deep red.
Beyond the myth, Lee also takes readers on a deeply personal exploration of indigenous life around the world. What it means to belong to a land that's both a sacred home and a luxury playground.
A place where tourism sustains families even as it threatens to displace them. Joseph Lee grew up in a suburb of Boston and spent his summers on his family's land, working at his parents' store on Martha's Vineyard.
He teaches creative writing at Mercy University and has written for several publications, including The Guardian, BuzzFeed News, Vox, and High Country News. Joseph Lee, welcome to Fresh Air, and congratulations on this book.
What a sweeping journey. Thank you, and thank you so much for having me.
There are many versions of Martha's Vineyard. The description I just gave is this vacation spot for the wealthy.
But would you mind reading a section from your book where you describe the other parts, the people and the land and the feeling of this island? The thing about Martha's Vineyard is that it's more complicated than people think. There's a Martha's Vineyard where politicians and wealthy Democratic donors have private parties with catering and security guards.
There's a Martha's Vineyard that is filled with Vineyard Vines polos, private beaches, and sailboats. There's another for families who come over for the day to buy ice cream and keychains.
There are those who own a summer house, those who rent one, and those who might stay at a hotel or the youth hostel. It has been home to fishermen, hippies, tribal members, Brazilian immigrants, working families, and so much more.
It may also be that people simply don't realize how big Martha's Vineyard is. Unlike Nantucket, which is smaller and only has one town, Martha's Vineyard has six distinct towns, each with its own characteristics and town governments.
The island is divided into up-island and down-island, each with three towns. The terminology comes from longitude, with the up-island towns, Aquina, Chilmark, and West Tisbury, on the western side of the island with its higher longitudinal coordinates.
The three down-island towns are Oak Bluffs, Tisbury, and Angertown. Up Island is much more rural, and while the up-island towns do have smatterings of stores and businesses, we go down-island to get groceries, pick visitors up from the airport or ferry, and go shopping.
And finally, at the western tip of the island, Aquinnah is the smallest and most remote town. Sometimes, when tourists make it to Aquinnah, they say they can't believe how long it took to get there.
If they biked, usually they're exhausted and desperate for another option to go back down island. Unlike other towns, we don't really have a town center.
Our only stores are the ones at the cliffs, which are only open seasonally. We're? and maybe even based on the history that you've learned through the research on this book and really what you learned growing up, at its height, the presence there on the island.
Yeah, I mean, at one time, you know, there was nobody else on the island. It was just Wampanoag folks.
And there are all sorts of different tribes and villages. And unfortunately, now we have a much smaller community.
And speaking for just the Aquino Wampanoag on the western end of the island, we're pretty small. We have over a thousand members in the tribe, but only a few hundred of those live on Martha's Vineyard.
And then an even smaller percentage of those actually live in Aquino, in our hometown. And so the question of, you know, what is the presence on the island? I think it depends.
I think for a lot of people, you know, for me, when I go home and I spend time there, it's a huge presence because I'm spending time at the cliffs, seeing cousins, going to tribal events, whether it's cultural gathering or a political meeting. It's a huge part of my life.
but I think what I've seen, and one of the things I write about in the book, is so many people come to the island or talk about the island or are interested in the island, and it really doesn't register for them. You know, they might not even make it up to Aquinnah, and if they do, they might meet us and kind of be surprised, or it might just never come up.
So I think it's a really big range of how people experience the tribe. It was really fascinating to read from your perspective, your view of the visitors who come to the island and how they view you and your family, your people.
Visitors often ask you the oddest things, like what kinds of questions and comments do they make? Yeah, I mean, it's such a huge range. I think for some reason being behind a counter just like exposes you to anything anybody wants to say.
And then I think being in this unique place of Martha's Vineyard and then being a tribal member, being a Quinnipawampanoag, brings sort of an extra layer to that. And yeah, people would ask all kinds of questions.
You know, I didn't think there were Indians anymore. What are you doing here? What do you wear? What kind of houses do you live in? Somebody once asked me if we use iPhones, which, you know, was very specific, but also, you know, are you talking about like the newest iPhone or, you know, just smartphones? And so there's a lot of weirdness and you kind of have to fight through it.
And it's something I wanted to talk about in the book because it's an important part of, I think, my experience, but our experience as a community more broadly. But I also didn't want it to become this like punching down thing where I was sort of focusing on these like bizarre and sometimes offensive comments I was getting, but sort of what's behind them.
Yeah. I mean, I bet you learn so much about people's ignorance or naivete around Native people and their understanding by how they relate to you, because your dad is Chinese American and your mom is half Japanese.
And so you don't look like what maybe most people assume Native people look like. What have those interactions revealed to you? Yeah, I think it basically confirms a lot of what I grew up with and what a lot of people will identify as kind of these American stereotypes about what a Native person is, what they look like.
And I think there's just so much going on for people in their minds when they come to Martha's Vineyard expecting one thing, and then they come to Aquinnah, and it's a little bit different, and then they meet us at the store, and we're a little bit different, and we have this different history that we're talking about. And they're trying to find some stable footing, and I think they're they're just like grasping on often to like, well, wait, but wait, like you're supposed to look like this if you're Native American and you don't really look like that.
And another kind of strange thing that that happens in this space is sometimes people say, oh, you know, I'm so excited. I've never met a Native person before.
Can I take a photo with you? Sometimes it's just, can I take a photo of you? And so sometimes I laugh a little bit wondering, like, well, when they take these photos and go back and show it to people, are they, yeah, what do they do with it? Are they, are they confused? Like, well, who's that Asian looking guy? And yeah. You dealt kind of with those interactions, not just on the island, but in life in general, when you talk about your identity.
I can imagine it's also shaped your own feelings about being Native. How did it in the ways that others relate to you affect the way you saw yourself, your own understanding of your tribe and your identity? Yeah, I think for a long time, I kind of internalized a lot of what I was feeling externally about what it meant to be Native.
And I think in the absence of maybe more nuanced, positive models of what it means to be Indigenous, I felt like the only thing I had to fall back on was kind of these stereotypes or simplifications or assumptions. And so I always felt a little bit like, well, am I maybe less Native because I don't look the way people expect me to look or because I have these other parts of my background? And that was something I think I wrestled with for a long time.
And it came with all these other factors that, you know, I didn't live full-time on Martha's Vineyard. I saw other young Native people who I felt were maybe embracing their culture a little bit more.

They were speaking the language or they were competing at powwows

or doing these things that I think to me and to maybe many other people

seemed so externally obviously Native.

And because I wasn't doing as many of those things

or didn't have as many of these biographical facts that I felt like added up to, like that's a native person, I always felt a little bit insecure in that identity. In some ways, you began to see yourself kind of no different than the tourists.
Yeah, because my experience on Martha's Vineyard, as much as I, you know, might try to ways, mirrored theirs. I would go there in the summer and I looked forward to the beaches and getting ice cream and going to the agricultural fair at the end of the summer and going on rides and playing games.
And all of that was fun and I loved it. but it to me didn't feel like this sort of ideal of being Wampanoag or being indigenous that I had built up in my head.
And so I kind of wondered, like, well, am I just another summer visitor? You know, what actually distinguishes me from these people that I'm sort of feeling this growing tension with over the years as they're asking me all these weird questions? As part of your research, you met with several tribes. You met with the Shastas.
You also met with members of the Cherokee freedmen. They're descendants of African Americans who were enslaved by members of the Cherokee Nation, then emancipated and incorporated into the tribe after the Civil War.
And that inclusion lasted until the nation began tightening their enrollment requirements, basing them on blood quantum, those who are Cherokee by blood. What did you learn from those conversations that maybe gave you a broader perspective or a different perspective or layered perspective on sovereignty? Yeah, talking to the freedmen was one of the earliest experiences I had that really, really challenged my own understanding of what it means, not just sort of culturally and personally to be indigenous, but politically what it means to be native in this country.
Because amidst all of my insecurity about being native enough, was I living up to these ideals? I knew that I could always cling on to this, like, well, I'm a tribal member. You know, I have my tribal ID card.
I'm enrolled. I can go to tribal camp.
I can participate in these ways. So I felt like, okay, well, I have that, so it's legit.
But meeting the freedmen was kind of really eye-opening because there are these people who've been a part of the community.

They've fought and died with the community.

You know, they're integral.

And then they're being told suddenly, you know, you're not one of us anymore.

And that really made me wonder sort of, okay, if I'm placing all of this on just, you know, having the tribal ID card, being a member of the tribe, what am I missing or who am I potentially leaving out of this conversation? One of the more powerful sections of the book for me is when you explore the identity of indigenous peoples from a global perspective. So you met Native people from all over the world through this United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
It's a two-week gathering held at UN headquarters in New York. And language was something you talked quite a bit about with folks from other parts of the world.
For some people, it's very important for them in the defining of what it means to be indigenous. What is your relationship with the Wampanoag language? Yeah, I grew up learning the Wampanoag language in our tribal summer camp.
At the time, a sort of many years long, very ambitious effort to bring back our language was in a relatively early phase. Our language was lost and we had no fluent speakers for a long time.
And around the time that I was growing up in camp and the language was coming back, people were working really hard to bring it back. And so in camp, we would practice words and phrases and learn how to introduce ourselves in our language.
And yeah, as I grew older, I would attend classes here and there, but it was never really a consistent part of my life. I never was able to prioritize it, but I know that there are a lot of people at home who are dedicating themselves to becoming fluent in the language and more importantly, becoming teachers in the language and learning how to pass along to others and help grow the language, because we're still very much in this space where we're trying to bring back the language and help it grow and kind of nourish it.
When you were at the UN conference, you met and talked with people about language and also just the other ways of identification and building identity. and there was a quote that came to mind for you from Native writer Tommy Orange, who wrote his novel They Are There a few years ago, that really speaks to this.
Can I have you read it? We are Indians and Native Americans, American Indians and Native American Indians,

North American Indians, Natives, NDNs and Indians, Status Indians and Non-Status Indians. I wanted you to read that because that realization that you had makes me wonder how much of identity comes down to choice.
And you write about this in the book. How much identity comes down to choice, the choice to be involved and engaged with your culture? And what have you come to? Yeah, I think what I realized is that it really is a choice.
I think when I was growing up, you know, as a kid, you have a lot less choice in your life. You have a lot less control.
You know, my parents kind of decided how much time we spent on Martha's Vineyard. We would go to tribal summer camp.
And as you grow older, I kind of realized that those were choices that they made for me and for my brother. And now I'm in a position where I need to make them for myself or I need to think about what those choices are.
And yeah, that line from Tommy Orange, I really thought about that, you know, should I be thinking about it all the time every day? Or should it be so internalized that it's like, I don't even think about it at all. It's just, you know, who I am, and I never have to think about it.
But I do think about it all the time now. And, you know, I realized that that's because I'm doing this work, I'm making it sort of a personal mission to go out and gather and tell these stories and learn about it.
And I realized that that's a choice I've made. And by making that choice, that's an aspect or that's a way of me embracing that side of my indigenous identity.
You know, I'm choosing to spend this time doing this. When I could be doing something else, I could be choosing to ask different questions or be a different kind of writer or have a different job entirely.
And I think that that was really powerful for me to think about because for so long I had thought of identity as something that's imposed on you from the outside. And it felt like I had a limited amount of choice in it.
But realizing like, well, I can control this relationship. I can control how

much I engage with the Aquino Wampanoag community. I can control what I'm writing about.
I can make

these choices. And in doing so, it's a means of connecting with that community and a means of

connecting with that part of who I am. And that was really important for me.

Joseph Lee, thank you so much for this book. And thank you for this conversation.
Thank you. Joseph Lee's new book is Nothing More of This Land, Community Power and the Search for Indigenous Identity.
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