The Truth According to Ember

by Danica Nava

For every Indigenous woman who has ever felt invisible. I see you. I am you.

desperation makes good people do bad things.

worrying makes you suffer twice.

I loved this big family we were able to find. We chose each other and would always be there for one another. This was what I was most thankful for and would be celebrating today. On the day we Indians saved the pilgrims.

I wanted to read a story where there were characters who identify as I do, and that inadvertently is a political statement. To write us in the pages of a love story, where we have never been allowed to be—except as caricatures or stereotypes to help non-Natives along their journeys—is powerful.

It took me writing about a girl who was a liar to rediscover my truth as a writer.