The Creative Writing Program, in partnership with the Institute for Ethnic Studies, hosts an evening with memorist Deborah Taffa, author of the acclaimed “Whisky Tender.” The memoir traces how a mixed tribe native girl — born on the California Yuma reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico — comes to her own interpretation of identity, despite her parent’s desires for her to transcend the class and “Indian” status of her birth through education, and despite the Quechan tribe’s particular traditions and beliefs regarding oral and recorded histories. Deborah Taffa’s childhood memories unspool into meditations on tribal identity, the rampant criminalization of Native men, governmental assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and the negotiation between belonging and resisting systemic oppression. Pan-Indian, as well as specific tribal histories and myths, blend with stories of a 1970s and 1980s childhood spent on and off the reservation.

Among the accolades for “Whiskey Tender”: An Oprah Daily “Best New Book” and “Riveting Nonfiction and Memoir You Need to Read” * A New York Times “New Book to Read” * A The New Yorker “Best Book out now” * An Esquire “Best Book (so far)” * A Zibby Mag “Most Anticipated Book” * An Elle “Best Book” * A Washington Post “Book to Read this Summer” * Publishers Weekly “Top 10 Memoir and Biography” * A San Francisco Chronicle “New Book to Cozy Up With” * A Publishers Weekly “Memoirs & Biographies: Top 10” * The Millions “Most Anticipated” * An Electric Lit “Books By Women of Color to Read” * An Amazon Editors “Best Book of the Month”