In the first to third segments of this six-part interview, Eloy Martinez describes to Kakoli Mitra his childhood in Colorado, beginning in 1940, when buildings still carried signs declaring “No dogs, no Indians.” When his father was convicted for taking the cows of Euro-Americans to feed his people, he was jailed, and all his benefits as a Native veteran were taken away, plunging Elder Eloy’s family into deeper poverty. He became a street urchin before the age of 8 and began working long hours to help feed his family. He and other children were regularly molested by a priest in his Catholic school, which caused one of his 8-year-old classmates to commit suicide. As a child and adolescent, Elder Eloy kept being incarcerated, sometimes for acts of defiance and sometimes for crimes he did not commit. These carceral institutions carted him and the other children out for hard physical labor and exhibitionism, e.g., boxing for the entertainment of settlers. Elder Eloy also describes meaningful times, like when he would ride on horseback up mountain passes to participate in intertribal gatherings and sweats; that is where he learned about and connected with his people’s ways.
No Dogs No Indians Allowed: Coming of Age in Colorado (1 of 6)
Despite facing racism, poverty, and repeated incarceration in 1940s Colorado (United States), in the ‘No Dogs No Indians’ era, 19-year-old Eloy Martinez got two jobs and took custody of his younger siblings to prevent their being taken to Boarding Schools.
Other parts of this series
Having grown up in Colorado, Eloy Martinez (he) moved to California as a young man and entered the building trade, providing good jobs to many Native people, while also being among the first occupiers of Alcatraz in the 1960s.
Indigenous North America | Navajo, Apache, Mestizo
United States
First Resilience
