UC Santa Cruz

The genealogy of violence against Indigenous women is a product of settler colonialism ideologies. I will trace the intergenerational inheritances of toxic masculinity through memoirs and my own lived experiences. The essay interweaves a close reading of the book Bad Indians by Deborah Miranda, which dissects the multifaceted aspects of settler violence and gendered masculinity. The paper asks the reader to question modes of scholarship in studying biography, family and ancestral relations, and oral tradition. The form of this paper switches between scholarly and analytical framing through Bad Indians and then to a personal narrative. The personal narrative is essential in reflecting the different tropes of orality. Although the creative aspects reflect memoirs, a critical distinction is needed: the sense of collective and individual experience. Although my experience is centralized in my understanding, these stories are told through the generational and collective experiences of trauma through the colonial gaze and moments of Indigenous culture and survivance.