Growing Up and Looking Out

Book excerpt: Katherine Augustine is an extraordinary person. This book tells Katherine’s story in her own words. It is drawn entirely from a selection of her writings in various publications, complete copies of which are available in archives in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The book is in two parts. The first, “My Life From Laguna Pueblo to Albuquerque” is Katherine’s autobiography from her childhood to the start of her nursing career. The second, “Tales My Grandmother Told Me and Being Laguna,” is a collection of Laguna Pueblo stories she learned as a child and personal observations of feast days and public ceremonies. For over thirty years she wrote stories about her life and observations of growing up at Laguna Pueblo, along with articles on current events, for several publications; these included the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center newsletter Pueblo Horizons, a column for the now defunct evening newspaper the Albuquerque Tribune, articles for the Albuquerque Laguna Colony Newsletter, and Round the Roundhouse, the New Mexico State Employees newsletter. Photographs in the first section are from Katherine’s family album, while images illustrating stories from Laguna Pueblo are derived from photographs of prehistoric art in the collection of Paul R. Secord.