I also chose to include a few lines of Dakota dialogue. I felt strongly about including those words in an effort to counteract previous generations of innumerable children’s books that have never depicted or even acknowledged Native languages, and the stereotypes of Hollywood that reduced Native communication to grunts and pidgin. Today, many indigenous nations are working hard on language revitalization programs.

In a letter to her daughter, Rose, in April 1921, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about greeting an African American man at a meeting of her local farm loan association: “Our colored member was there and when he was introduced to me I shook hands with him which nearly paralyzed some of the others.” (Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, ed. William Anderson [New York: HarperCollins, 2016], 28.)

I like to think of that handshake as a clue to how Wilder might have reacted to Prairie Lotus. The Little House stories were written years after that letter; her awareness had not grown enough for her to deal with the harmful scenes in her books. But I hope she might have been open to learning how her work affected a young Midwestern Asian girl who grew up to be a writer.

Prairie Lotus is a story I have been writing nearly all my life. It is an attempt to reconcile my childhood love of the Little House books with my adult knowledge of their painful shortcomings. My wish is that this book will provide food for thought for all who read it, especially the young readers in whose hands the future lies.

Acknowledgments

SO MANY PEOPLE to thank. That is in itself a blessing.

Throughout my childhood, my father, Ed Park, took me to the library, where I first encountered the Little House books. My mom, Susie Park, taught me to sew, knit, and embroider when I was a child, and I have vivid memories of the clothes she made for me and my siblings.

I am grateful to the citizens of a number of Native Nations for sharing their insights and wisdom. Andrea M. Page (Hunkpapa) and Mary Blackcloud Monsees (Hunkpapa) provided the transliterations of the Lakota language. Andrea also gifted me with my second-ever braid of timpsina (timpsila in Lakota). In addition to spending the day with me on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Donovin Sprague (Minneconjou), author, tour guide, and historian, read the manuscript and sent helpful comments. Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muscogee), Dawn Quigley (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe), Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki), Melody Staebner (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe), and Darlene TenBear Boyle (Crow Agency Apsaalooke and Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) gave me general information and advice with generosity and kindness.