By Staff of Nevada Humanities
As record numbers of Americans have cast their ballots in the 2020 election season, Nevada Humanities is sharing essays and reflections from first-time and seasoned voters throughout the state.
By Emilee Wirshing
clay mineral rusts
the desert brush
an alchemy of iron & time,
when our rituals need sacrifice
we steep the knuckled twigs
of ephedra for tea, wander
bare ankled through fields
of jumping cholla.
By Daniel Enrique Pérez
As the United States reckons with its legacy of racial violence and discrimination against several communities of color and religious minorities—Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Jewish, and Muslim—I am reminded of the important role the names of places play.
By Sally Denton
Living in the long shadow of the coronavirus pandemic during a particularly prickly presidential election year, it’s easy to be consumed by the daily headlines and forget those better angels of our common humanity. But it’s at just such times that the Humanities are more important than ever, because they remind us of the great spirit that exists in the American people.
By Bill Marion
You may not know it, but October is National Arts and Humanities Month. As the Chair of the Board of Nevada Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, it has fallen on me to say something about why we should dedicate a full month to the Arts and Humanities, particularly when venerable institutions like hot dogs, apple pie, and the American flag only get a day each. This of course then leads to the questions of what are the arts? What are the humanities?
By Aliza Pantoja
To whom it may concern:
I have written this letter in support of Nevada Humanities. This letter has not been written on behalf of them or as a request from them. We are an organization that has continued to create and support programs that resonate with the people of our state during the recent, uncertain times. I am proud of the work that we do, and I think our group of sometimes nine or more women are a true representation of an organization that tries to create something good in our state.
By Kurt Rasmussen
The muddy lake is like an ocean to the boy
who is your son, digging landscapes in the sand.
He is a wastrel god with tiny, pruned-up hands
creating worlds and wrecking them with savage joy.
—written while sheltering in place
October is National Arts & Humanities Month. We thought this collaborative poem written by Nevada poets would be a fitting way to kick off this celebratory month. Enjoy!
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By Ken Lamug
Growing up in Quezon City, Philippines, I dreamed that I would be an archaeologist. I remember looking through hand-me-down copies of the Britannica Encyclopedia (which was missing a few volumes) and old prints of National Geographics. Opening the double-spread map of an ancient Mayan city was a marvel. The hieroglyphs and photos of artifacts were mesmerizing. I would take notes and redraw them.
By William Marion
On a shelf in my study is a book with a Nevada Humanities bookmark titled The Way Things Work: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Technology. It includes about 300, two-page descriptions of things we take for granted, and which we generally know little about except for the fact that we know they work. I read one excerpt every day – hence, the bookmark. Today, I read about clocks and watches; a couple of weeks ago the topic was steam engines. It’s a pretty eclectic book.
By Emily Budd
On November 2, 1986, the Stonewall Park group held their first town meeting in Queer Rhyolite. Fred Schoonmaker and Alfred Parkinson, a gay couple with a small following, had just moved here as they began the process to purchase the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada. Located on colonized Western Shoshone land between Death Valley National Park and the Nevada Test Site, the abandoned mining town was the new prospect for their queer utopian vision.
By Stephanie Gibson, Kathleen Kuo, and Sara Ortiz
In late 2019, a committee of writers, scholars, book sellers, and community members throughout our state met to select two books–a fiction and non-fiction title–as part of Nevada Reads, our statewide reading club. The two chosen: Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder, and Severance by Ling Ma. This pairing was selected, in part, because of the corresponding themes of displacement, transience, and economic upheaval found in both books. As 2020 unfolded, these themes became increasingly germane. With Severance especially, Ling Ma’s satirical portrait of a global fever illness that transforms life in the U.S. became eerily prophetic as COVID-19 swept our world.
By Montana Black
Where do artists fit in the discussion of climate destruction and environmental issues? Answer: Everywhere. Artists have been calling out environmental, social, economic, and justice issues for as long as people have been picking things up to make marks. Before we talk about the important role artists have in the work toward creating environmental stability, let us define climate change.
By Christina Barr
In times of crisis we turn to the things we know. We naturally turn to our historians to understand the past so that we can manage the present and envision the future, we turn to our poets to see meaning in the things that we might have missed in our busy, overwrought lives, and we dig deep into our cultural traditions to ground us in our families – especially as we isolate ourselves for the good of our communities.
By Staff of Nevada Humanities
The Online Nevada Encyclopedia (ONE) is a free and easy-to-use multimedia educational resource that enables anyone, anywhere with online access to learn more about our Silver State. The ONE is widely used by Nevada educators in K‐12 classrooms and parents to bring Nevada’s history and culture to young people, as well as by the general public.
By Gig Depio
It sure feels good to be “free.” After more than three months, we’re finally crawling out from our caves.
It feels a bit strange though, being a painter, since I’m used to the isolation, doing most of my work alone in the studio. Yet, for whatever reason, there is a comfort in knowing that consumerism is coming back to life, churning the engines once again in relentless pursuit of this thing we call “economic progress” right where we left off last March.
By Justin Favela
“We are all in this together.”
I lay in bed trying to go to sleep but my mind won’t stop racing. I wait patiently as YouTube plays another car commercial. I just want to zone out, escape, and rest.
My bedtime video starts playing, and I watch my favorite drag queen transform a vintage Dolly Parton wig from 1990s fashion mullet to a fun 1960s bubble bouffant. When she puts that hair on she is going to be serving you “administrative assistant a-gogo realn…”
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By Claire McCully
The cat meows in his carrier
For nearly all twenty minutes
Of our drive to the animal ER.
When he finally falls silent,
I worry that he’s already dead.
In the waiting room, my nine year old son
Points to a glossy magazine picture,
A cat like our own, but one that’s healthy
And playful. My boy plays Scheherazade
To my heart, tells a story
Of miracles, of a cat that survives
His faith in living things
Is full of boyish defiance,
Forevers-and-evers.
He hasn’t spilled a drop
Of his endless summer.
By Jonathan Cummins
In 1938, the Federal Government adopted the Small Tract Act. As a Homestead Era policy, the Small Tract Act was intended to encourage settlement in the West. The one requirement to secure a 5-acre tract of free land was to live on it permanently. By the 1950s, hundreds of small tracts north of Reno, Nevada were settled temporarily before changing hands again. The Bureau of Land Management had allowed settlers to use trailers to establish residency. Speculators bought up small tracts and subdivided the place into lots with a simple formula: dig a well, a septic tank, install a trailer. And with that, Sun Valley was born.
By Erica Vital-Lazare
Removed from our works
the iron core taken into our mouths
the sweet clay feeding the belly
through our wounds, we are stripped
and stripping conduits, conductors burned loose
where we travel, we are pushed through the ore—