Esther Belin

Esther G. Belin
At UC Berkeley's Lunch Poems in 2024
Born	(1968-07-02) July 2, 1968 Gallup, New Mexico
Occupation	Artist, writer, poet, writing instructor, and addiction counselor
Education	University of California, Berkeley (1991) Institute of American Indian Arts Antioch University
Literary movement	Works based upon Navajo philosophy of Saah Naagháí Bik’eh Hózho
Notable works	From the Belly of My Beauty, "Of Cartography: Poems (Sun Tracks)"
Notable awards	American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation (2000)
Website
www.estherbelin.com

Esther Belin, who has work published under Esther G. Belin (born July 2, 1968), is a Diné multimedia artist, writer, poet, writing instructor, and addiction counselor. The Before Columbus Foundation chose From the Belly of My Beauty for the American Book Award after the book was published in 1999. She was one of the editors of The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature that was published in 2021. It is on the Lists of Best Books, 2010-2023 of the American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL).

Early life and education

Belin, born in Gallup, New Mexico on July 2, 1968, was raised in Los Angeles by her Navajo parents, Susan and Eddie Belin. She is a member of the matrilineal Zia (Tłʼógi) clan of the Diné, through her maternal grandmother Pearl Toledo, and is related to the Bittersweet (Tódichꞌiiꞌnii) clan.

Her mother and father were part of the Federal Indian relocation program of the 1950s and 1960s, which relocated them to Riverside, California to the boarding school for Native Americans called Sherman Institute. They were indoctrinated over five years to the life, food, religion, and language of white people. As Belin grew up with two siblings, she learned English to survive as an Urban-Raised Indian (U.R.I.) during the school months in the city. She spent summers in New Mexico and Arizona on Navajo homeland. Belin had not been taught the Navajo language as she was growing up and had a hard time communicating with her extended family members. She felt alienated in the city and in the Dinétah, or Navajo Nation, even though she felt free there.

Belin studied at the University of California, Berkeley. where she worked with the Native American Studies department to create three videos, The Princess, shown at the L.A. Film Festival, Beyond the Squaw, and Surviving in This Place Called the United States. She was the commencement speaker when she graduated in 1991. Belin then attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She finished a Master of Fine Arts program. Belin holds a degree from Antioch University.

Career

Belin is the author of a collection of poetry, From the Belly of My Beauty, published in 1999 by the University of Arizona Press. The book won the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2000. It is about growing up in the white world of Southern California as an Indian after her parents were relocated from the Navajo Nation, a Navajo reservation.

Of Cartography, published in 2017, is a collection of poems that are organized using the Diné culture's Four Sacred Directions. For Belin her poems are like road maps, and a person's identity is shaped by the landscape. She states, "Road narratives are typical of Navajo people. We travel so much, especially for work or school. You gain an appreciation for your culture and the land and the landscape as you're driving and telling stories. Natural markers are universal to people; it's connection with a place." She writes online poems like, "X+X+X+X-X-X-X." According to a review from Library Journal, "Belin provides graphic descriptions of the 'wounds' one endures remaining true to a 'native lifestyle.'" Writing poetry helps her feel less marginalized.

In 2017, she was working on a biography of Jim Thorpe through poetry. Thorpe was a member of the Sac and Fox Nation who won an Olympic gold medal. Sherman Alexie considers Belin to be one of his favorite Native writers. She was an editor of The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature that was published in 2021. It is on the Lists of Best Books, 2010-2023 by the American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL). In 2021, Berlin contributed to the multimedia Pandemic Chronicles, Volume 1 on the Art Journal Open website.

Belin taught writing at the high school level and by 2012 at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. By 2017, Belin worked as an intake and addiction counselor at the Peaceful Spirit Treatment Center, an addiction center, on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation. It is near the Ute Mountain Ute, Navajo, and Jicarilla Apache reservations of the Four Corners region. Since 2021, Belin has mentored students at the Institute for American Indian Arts' low-residency MFA program.

As a multi-media artist, Belin has created Bound Sky, Pretty Tough, and Standing on the Outside, Sitting on the Outside installations. She creates jewelry with combinations of faceted crystal beads, trade beads, shells, felted wool, and seeds. She is also a printmaker. Belin has been a member of the Arroyo Arte Collective and has had a booth at the Santa Fe Indian Market.

Activist

Belin protests against the Columbus Day holiday that celebrates Christopher Columbus, who exploited Indigenous people of the Caribbean.e She supports the "Real History of the Americas" day to celebrate Native American's culture and traditions and tell the story of colonization of the Americas from the Native people's experiences and perspectives. Without the tools to heal from the pain of exploitation and genocide, many Native Americans are left traumatized. She said in a 2012 Democracy Now! broadcast at Fort Lewis College, "[I]t's super important for us to start that healing process and then, as well, to talk about it and to guide other people around their own trauma, which it is an historical trauma." In an interview with Belin, Jeff Berglund writes, "For Belin, writing is activism, activism is writing."

Personal life

Belin met fellow student Dan Edd, a sculptor and a painter, at the Institute of American Indian Arts. They were married and had — four daughters Sierra, Ruthie, Chamisa, and Santana — born between 1995 and 2003. All artists, they have participated in the Santa Fe Indian Market since they were children. They grew as filmmakers, photographers, and artists. Based upon her spirit of activism, Belin raised her daughters to be protestors. She states, "People... don't want to be responsible for dropping the cultural ball of preservation. Somewhere we were tricked into believing that we are no longer in a state of emergency."

After Belin graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, she lived in Torreon near the Navajo Nation in New Mexico for more than 20 years. In the same state, she then lived in Santa Fe and Farmington. Belin lived in Durango, Colorado.

Works

Films

While at the University of California, Berkeley, Belin made:

• The Princess, shown at the L.A. Film Festival
• Beyond the Squaw
• Surviving in This Place Called the United States

Poetry

Belin's books

• From the Belly of My Beauty. Sun traks, v. 38. University of Arizona Press. 1999. ISBN 978-0-8165-1954-5., including "Bringing Hannah Home", "Blues-ing on the Brown Vibe", and "Night Travel"
• Of Cartography: Poems. University of Arizona Press. 2017. ISBN 978-0-8165-3602-3.

Within other books

• Allen, Paula Gunn, ed. (1996). Song of the Turtle: American Indian Literature 1974-1994. One World/Ballantine. ISBN 978-0-345-37525-4.
• Erdrich, Heid E.; Tohe, Laura, eds. (2002). Sister nations : Native American women writers on community. Minnesota Historical Society Press. ISBN 0-87351-428-9.
• Goeman, Mishuana (2013). "(Re)routing Native Mobility, Uprooting Settler Spaces in the Poetry of Esther Belin". Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-7791-7.
• Leong, Russell; University of California, Los Angeles Asian American Studies Center; Southern California Asian American Studies Central. Visual Communications (1991). Moving the image : independent Asian Pacific American media arts. Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Visual Communications, Southern California Asian American Studies Central. pp. 245–247. ISBN 978-0-934052-13-9.
• Ortiz Simon J., ed. (1997). Speaking for the Generations: Native Writers on Writing. University of Arizona Press. ISBN 978-0-8165-1850-0.
• Walters, Anna Lee, ed. (1993). Neon Pow-Wow: New Native American Voices of the Southwest. Northland Publishing. ISBN 978-0-87358-562-0.

Editor

• The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature. University of Arizona Press. 2021. ISBN 978-0-8165-4099-0., with other editors

See also

• List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas

External links

• Official website
• Poetry Foundation - Esther Belin