Terria Smith Imagines the Possibilities
A journey of discovering purpose as a young writer to becoming editor of a statewide magazine devoted to California’s Indigenous peoples
featuring Terria Smith, Editor, News from Native California
as interviewed by Qiana Moore, California Arts Council
In 2020, as many arts and culture organizations pivoted to bring their programming online for the first time to continue programs under public health guidelines, Terria Smith, editor of the magazine News from Native California, noticed a rise in subscriptions for her cultural publication.
“There’s a whole lot of folks in California who don’t have internet, especially in tribal communities,” Smith said. “It’s even more important to help people stay connected in that way, and to keep people abreast on what’s going on in Native California and different tribal communities and tribal nations and reservations and, you know, anywhere that things are going on.” Smith, a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, draws from her experiences as a young person growing up on her Southern California reservation and her time as a local community reporter in her current role as the editor of NFNC, an acclaimed print publication focused on issues impacting California Native communities.
After gaining recognition from elders in her community when a letter to the editor she wrote was published in her local newspaper, Smith changed her career focus to journalism. “It took me a lot longer to finish school than most people,” she said. “I thought I wanted to be a teacher, but I wasn’t really motivated. I kept feeling like this is something that I want to do because I feel like it’s something that I can do, but I wasn’t really excited about it. So when [the letter to the editor] happened, I started reading, you know, the wheels started turning, and I started redirecting myself as to what direction I wanted to go in life.”
While covering a storytelling event featuring Malcolm Margolin, one of the founders of NFNC, Smith was introduced to the magazine’s editor and other community members of Heyday, the independent, nonprofit publisher of NFNC. She enjoyed being around the “kind and down-to-earth” people working at Heyday and began writing for NFNC as a contributing editor. When the opportunity to serve as the magazine’s editor opened, Smith applied and was selected, becoming the first California Indian to serve in the role since NFNC was established in March of 1987.
Smith spoke with Qiana Moore, California Arts Council Public Affairs Student Assistant, about navigating a career in journalism, managing the dynamic cultural publication, and the importance of mentorship.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
QM: Over the course of your career, you have taken on various roles — social media coordinator, reporter, writer, tribal liaison, now the editor of the quarterly magazine NFNC. Can you share with us a bit about your journey and experience as a journalist?
TS: I’ve always loved to write since I knew how, and loved telling stories and everything like that. When I was about 20 years old, my tribe was having kind of a land acquisition dispute that another tribe was opposing, and I wrote a letter to the editor. In the community that I come from, it’s like, people are kind of oriented toward — it’s a cultural thing — listening to older people. They’ve had wisdom and knowledge and experience and everything like that. It’s hard to get people to listen to young people sometimes. So I wrote this letter to the editor, and a few people from the reservation, older people, read the newspaper, and they were like, “It’s a really good letter.” So I thought, “Oh wow!” This writing thing — people will listen to me if I write. I found out during that time that — and I don’t know if this is still true — but during that time, about 75 percent of working writers were journalists. So journalism became the vessel to be able to have a career in writing. I figured, OK, if I’m going to be a working writer, this is the job I have to have. But the possibility of actually becoming a journalist became real to me, like really real, in 2005.
I went to the Native American Journalists Association’s annual conference, and it was a really, really, really cool event. I realized that I could have a career in journalism because I started meeting other Native people who had similar situations and backgrounds as me, who came from reservations, and they were going to all these really cool universities and doing internships at these really awesome newspapers and everything. It just changed the course of my life. My goals got bigger, my ambitions got grander, and I knew that that was something that I could do, and that there was a support system for that.
QM: You’re a registered member of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians. Can you share how your experience as a California Native has influenced your work as a writer, storyteller, and editor?
TS: OK, well, as a California Indian myself, and then being the editor of NFNC magazine, I get a firsthand, up-close, real-life, everyday experience about the issues of visibility that California Native people have, and that’s the wonderful part. That’s also the frustrating part, too, because when people don’t have a working knowledge of something, I take it really personally. Like, how do you not know? For me, when I travel from one part of the state to the other, I orient myself toward the tribal communities that are in wherever I’m going. I’m like, OK, this is where Kumeyaay people live, or this is where Luiseño people — [where] their reservations are — and that sort of thing. I see California Native communities everywhere that I go, and I’m starting to think that it’s a conscious act that people don’t see California [tribal] communities, because it’s not like we’re hidden away. Some of our reservations are right off of major freeways and everything like that, and so I’m thinking, OK, at some point, you’re choosing to ignore our communities. Why would you do that sort of thing? So that when I’m in my job and I think about what it is that people don’t know, and what I think it’s important for them to know, that’s where I feel like I’m being influenced by my background and everything like that. Like, I wish people knew this — that sort of thing.
I see California Native communities everywhere that I go, and I’m starting to think that it’s a conscious act that people don’t see California [tribal] communities, because it’s not like we’re hidden away.
QM: At the beginning of 2020, many people believed it was going to be the year of clarity and opportunity. No one could have predicted the challenges — a global pandemic, mass protests against the murders of unarmed Black and brown people, the desecration of Indigenous lands to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall, systemic racism, and the calls for and removals of many Confederate and colonial-era monuments. How have you managed to support your work, the work of your contributors, and Native and tribal communities, given the unprecedented times we’re experiencing?
TS: This is one of those times where I cannot say how grateful I am that the magazine is here.
Because people have a lot to say. People are doing a lot. In the the world of activism and academia even, too, to support tribal rights and to be able to increase our visibility.
I’m glad that people turn to the magazine and have stories and essays and poetry and photography and all the things that are going on. I’m glad that we can be here for that. Because without us, I don’t know who would focus on California, if that makes sense. There’s a lot of tribal publications out there in the country and everything, but we’re the only ones that focus on California specifically. I believe that that’s important. Some years back, when the activism was going on at Standing Rock, it brought a whole lot of visibility to tribal people, and it was really, really, really important. There were a whole lot of tribal people from California who participated in that, but there were also tribal people from California that said, “Where was everybody when we were trying to get the dams off the Klamath River? Where was everybody when they were desecrating our sacred sites to put in a highway? Where was everybody when we were trying to clean up the water in the desert on Torres Martinez reservation?” — where I’m from. “Where was everybody then?” The problem is that people think of tribal people being somewhere else, like the Southwest or the plains or something like that. People don’t see people in California, and so I’m glad that we’re here. We’re here to continue that when everybody else moves on, and I’m glad that we can do that.
QM: Following this summer’s protests, the experiences of BIPOC creatives were amplified, and more discussions transitioned to supporting the push for more BIPOC people in leadership roles in the creative and cultural fields. How did your earlier experiences in journalism influence the roles you have chosen as you moved up in your career?
TS: When I started my career as a journalist and going through school, there were limited opportunities to write about the communities or to cover communities that I actually cared about. My first real job as a reporter, not an intern or anything like that, but my first real job as a reporter, I worked for The Desert Sun. The joke was that I covered dog shows, rodeos, and pageants. I remember this one time I had to go to — I can’t believe this even happened — I had to go to Cheetah’s, the chimp’s, birthday party. I guess he was, like, one of the animals that was in the old Tarzan movies or something like that. They had a birthday party for this animal, and then I had to go. Yeah, it was weird and stuff. Oh gosh, it was just ridiculous! But those are the kinds of things that you have to do earlier in your career to kind of pay your dues, if you will.
I think that I’m just grateful to be able to, after all of those years and all those sacrifices and going to school all that time, to be able to really work with communities that I really care about, which is California Native communities. I love California so much.
I think that I’m just grateful to be able to, after all of those years and all those sacrifices and going to school all that time, to be able to really work with communities that I really care about, which is California Native communities. I love California so much. It irks me when I hear people talk bad about California; it bothers me. It really does and everything like that, and I’m just like, “Well, you can leave my beautiful state!” But you know, I really, really love California. I think, since human beings have inhabited California, it’s been a special place, and I’m glad to be able to now have a job, and I don’t ever want to leave having a job where I’m focusing on California’s First Peoples.
QM: Your résumé highlights a number of volunteer mentorship roles you have taken on for various publications and organizations over the years. How do you approach being a mentor, and what are some valuable things you have learned from these experiences?
TS: Mentoring, it’s a really cool thing. I love young people, and I especially love college-aged folks. I remember what college was like, especially undergrad at Humboldt State; those are some of the best years of my life! Folks in that period of time in their life — no matter their age, but just that period of time in their life — folks are just so open for knowledge and experience and enthusiasm. College students are the best writers for the magazine, because they’re so excited and they get everything in on time and they want to impress you. They’re amazing! I love college students. They’re the the greatest ones to speak to. They have the best questions and they are the most informed. I mean, in my experience, they’re amazing, but they all have a different set of needs and challenges — every single one of them, and that’s how I’ve had to learn how to approach mentoring. It’s a wonderful thing if you’re engaging with a student who is genuinely interested in finding out how to get over the wall. Some folks are not really into it. They’re into an internship; that hasn’t been the case with interns from NFNC. They’ve all been fantastic, and they’ve all done wonderful things with themselves.
To be able to dream is to be able to imagine possibilities beyond your resources and circumstances.
I always wonder, “Do I have anything of value to contribute?” I find that I do; I find that you always have something valuable to hand off to a mentee, and I’m grateful. I always wanted to do it, because I was grateful for the mentoring that I got with [the Native American Journalists Association] and organizations like that. Folks who I could call, folks who I could reach out to, and folks that would help me out with opportunities. Most of my good friends are from the people I’ve met through NAJA. It’s a valuable thing to be able to help people, and it feels wonderful to be able to help somebody else over the wall. It really does. It’s an amazing thing, and I’ve appreciated it when it was done for me in my life.
QM: In honor of the inaugural issue of the agency’s new magazine, DREAM, can you share with us: What does the word “dream” mean to you?
TS: Well, to me, to be able to dream is to be able to imagine possibilities beyond your resources and circumstances. At least that’s what it’s meant to me, in my life. Because with circumstances, like being a person of color, being in poverty, all of the challenges that go with those sorts of things, people don’t have any expectations for you. Because your resources and circumstances are such that people from there don’t do this type of stuff, or people that come from where you come from don’t go to college, or they don’t have those types of careers, and those sorts of things. When I started off, before I got hooked up with NAJA, I had a list of goals. I still do lists. I drive my kids crazy with lists and everything. I remember after I finished my undergrad, I looked at that list of goals and it was the saddest thing ever. I was just, like, “Oh my gosh, these were my aspirations?” But I feel like that’s being able to dream. The reason I say that, too, is that I used to say that growing up on a reservation, at least the reservation that I came from, it was really, really rural, and in the desert. I think it does something to people’s ability to dream — especially a young person that believes that everything exciting is going on somewhere else, you know — and so that’s why I say that to be able to dream is to be able to imagine possibilities beyond your resources and circumstances.
The California Arts Council is a proud funder of News from Native California, providing support through its Arts and Public Media grant to help enhance multimedia capabilities on the magazine’s website to better share its content and attract wider audiences.
ABOUT TERRIA SMITH
Terria Smith is an enrolled tribal member of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians who serves as the editor of News from Native California, a quarterly magazine “devoted to the vibrant cultures, art, languages, histories, social justice movements, and stories of California’s diverse Indian peoples.” She is also the director of California Indian Publishing at Heyday. Smith is a member of the Native American Journalists Association and an alumna of the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Learn more at http://newsfromnativecalifornia.com.
DREAM is California’s newest arts and culture magazine, published by the California Arts Council, the state’s arts agency.
The annual publication features voices and stories from across the state, sharing a glimpse into the depth of impact of creativity and cultural expression in a region as large and diverse as California. The premier issue explores what it means to dream, introducing artists and culture bearers from communities throughout the state.
Visit www.arts.ca.gov/dream for more information.
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