Book Tour: Stories My Grandmother Told Me: A Multicultural Journey from Harlem to Tohono O’dham

Genre:Memoir

Publisher: City Point Press/Simon & Schuster

The illuminating and deeply personal debut from Gabriela Maya Bernadett,Stories My Grandmother Told Meexplores culture, race, and chosen family, set against the backdrop of the twentieth-century American Southwest.

In a hilly Southern California suburb in the late twentieth century, Gabriela Maya Bernadett listens as her grandmother tells her a story.

It’s the true story of Esther Small, the great-granddaughter of slaves, who became one of the few Black students to graduate from NYU in the 1940s. Having grown up in Harlem, Esther couldn’t imagine a better place to live; especially not somewhere in the American Southwest.

But when she learns of a job teaching Native American children on a reservation, Esther decides to take a chance. She soon finds herself on a train to Fort Yuma, Arizona; unaware that each year, the Bureau of Indian Affairs kidnaps the native Tohono O’odham…