"My mother told us some of her family was Indian (Native American). Her telling was jumbled and bitter in ways I couldn’t understand. So, growing up in the 1950’s, I never knew which box to check: White, Black, Indian, Asian, Hispanic, Other. I didn’t want to check White – that would be a denial of my mixed heritage. But I didn’t feel I could check Indian – that felt like stealing something that wasn’t mine. I always chose Other. I thought of and think of myself as Other. Other than the categories we are given to choose from and other than who and what is represented in the national stories of race and culture. A few years after my mother died, I took her ashes on a road trip to Walla Walla, Washington where she was born, to the reservation where her relatives lived, and to Portland where she grew up. On the reservation, I started to ask questions. I wondered how racial/cultural/historical trauma contributed to my mother’s mental illness. I wondered if there was some way to think of myself besides Other. Pilgrimage recounts a part of that journey.” - Elaine Magree, excerpt from "Other"