Navigation notes

There isn't a set order in which you have to read the pages.

The "Okla(home)a" page (accessible from the top with the home icon or through the navigation bar) contains an interactive collage. All photos in the collage will expand when hovered over, and each links to a separate page in on the website.

The navigation bar at the top of the site also links to all of the pages on the site for a more traditional navigation experience.

"Oklahoma is more than just another state. It is a lens in which the long rays of time are focused into the brightest of light. In its magnifying clarity, dim facets of the American character stand more clearly revealed. For in Oklahoma all the experiences that went into the making of the nation have been speeded up. Here all the American traits have been intensified. The one who can interpret Oklahoma can grasp the meaning of America in the modern world." (Debo vii)

This memoir is a space for me to explore my life growing up in the heartland of the United States while also thinking about how trauma is situated in particular spaces, inseparable from the land and the buildings and the people that are Oklahoma.

Oklahoma represents two different experiences for me. Between the Oklahoma City bombing, my lifetime with chronic pain, and living with both being closeted and being abused by a roommate, Oklahoma is difficult, painful, and destructive. But Oklahoma also represents spaces of love, recovery, and happiness.

It is, in a word, home, with all the conflicting emotions that home can represent. As Debo argues, the history and space of Oklahoma reflect and condense the history and space of the entire nation. America has been a nation of colonialism, abuse, repression, racism—all of this is not only captured, but is centralized within the "heartland." Therefore, knowing what it is to live (in) Oklahoma means knowing what it is to live in the United States. But on another level, for me personally, it means knowing myself, coming to terms with what it means to be an abuse survivor, a queer scholar, and a person with pain, depression, and anxiety. Therefore, this memoir will explore both individual and collective traumas but also narratives of recovery and growth. I tell my story as an Oklahoman both to record my own experiences and to reflect on what it means to grow up in the heartland of the United States during times of trauma and repression.