Research Guides: One Read for Racial Justice Guide: Girl Gone Missing: Overview

Girl Gone Missing

A blonde girl in Cash’s freshman Science class disappears. But soon she’s flying into Cash’s dreams, calling for help.

Most people call Renee Blackbear—the nineteen-year-old Anishinabe woman—“Cash.” Why? Because she drives trucks for cash. She plays pool for cash. She pays with cash. Now she’s in college, thanks to Sheriff Wheaton, the guy who pulled her from her mother’s wrecked car when she was three. Cash has navigated through foster homes and, at 13, was working farms, driving truck.

Turns out she’s smart, real smart, but she’s a duck out of water at Moorhead State. Her classmates and professors talk mostly about nothing, not like the working men she’s known all her life who talk dirt and fertilizer, weather and prices on the Grain Exchange. Then Cash hears about a blonde girl in her English class gone missing. And then another. She begins to dream blonde girls calling for help. They’re in Minneapolis. She’s never been far from the Red River. She’s never heard of White Slavery. And, then, suddenly she’s locked inside a room with the lost girls. She needs to find a way out. (from the publisher)

Girl Gone Missing by Marcie R. Rendon
eBook
Girl Gone Missing by Marcie R. Rendon
print book

Events

Girl Gone Missing Fall 2021 Event Series

Past events:

One Book | One Minnesota
One Book | One Minnesota is a statewide book club that invites Minnesotans of all ages to read a common title and come together virtually to enjoy, reflect, and discuss.

Talking about Trauma & Healing: A Conversation with Students

Tuesday, October12
11am
Center for Women
In Collaboration with the Counseling Center and Abagail Quigley McCarthy Center for Women

MMIW: Women Leading for Justice

Wednesday, October 20

6:30pm

Recital Hall

In Collaboration with the Social Work Club, MSW Student Association, Office of Equity and Inclusion, and the Library

Million Artist Movement Power Tree Event

Monday, October 25

noon-3pm

In Collaboration with Dr. Margret McCue-Enser and Community Work & Learning

Writing a Meaningful Life: A Conversation with Marcie Rendon

In Collaboration with Dr. Taiyon J Coleman and the English Department

Wednesday, November 3

5pm

Questions? Please contact Anh-Hoa Nguyen at atnguyen2@stkate.edu

Jaimie Black: Virtual Artist Talk

Wednesday, November 10

7pm

Zoom

An Integrated Learning Series Event

History of Indigenous Resistance in MN and the American Indian Movement

In collaboration with Dr. Nancy Heitzeg & Dr. Jane Carroll

Thursday, November 11

11:30am

President's Dining Room & Zoom

REDress Project

October 23-November 14

St. Kate's Quad

An Integrated Learning Series Event

Marcie Rendon in Conversation with Dr. Dawn Quigley

Wednesday, November 17

7pm

Rauenhorst Ballroom & Zoom

A Core Convocation in collaboration with the Office of Intercultural Engagement and Social Justice

Recording available here (requires St.Kate's username/password)

Native History, Art, and Culture

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians but Were Afraid to Ask by Anton Treuer

New Poets of Native Nations by Heid E. Erdrich (Editor)

The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen by Sean Sherman

Mni Sota Makoce by Gwen Westerman; Bruce White

Shapes of Native Nonfiction by Elissa Washuta (Editor); Theresa Warburton (Editor)

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer

When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through by Joy Harjo (Editor)

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Powwow: a celebration through song and dance cover

American Indian History (Database)
Access to more than 15,000 years of culture and history, covering more than 600 Native American groups. Contains videos, images, biographies of key people, event and topic entries, primary sources, maps and graphs, and timelines.
American Indian Movement Interpretive Center
The AIM Interpretive Center is located in the heart of the American Indian Community of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The American Indian Movement Interpretive Center holds a legacy of millions of historical records, culture captured on media, radio archives, photographs and the testimony of living elders who want the story of the American Indian Movement told.
Blood Memory (Documentary)
Battles over blood quantum and 'best interests' resurface the untold history of America's Indian Adoption Era - a time when nearly one-third of children were removed from tribal communities nationwide. As political scrutiny over Indian child welfare intensifies, an adoption survivor helps others find their way home through song and ceremony.
Our Fires Still Burn (Documentary)
This compelling one hour documentary invites viewers into the lives of contemporary Native Americans. It dispels the myth that American Indians have disappeared from the American horizon, and reveals how they continue to persist, heal from the past, confront the challenges of today, keep their culture alive, and make significant contributions to society.
Native American Literature in Your Classroom
Tips and resources for integrating Native American material into the classroom curated by the National Museum of the American Indian.

Native Women's Experiences

Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

#NotYourPrincess by Lisa Charleyboy (Editor); Mary Beth Leatherdale (Editor)

Sharing Our Stories of Survival by Sarah Deer (Editor)

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists by Jill Ahlberg Yohe and Teri Greeves (Editors)

Genocidal Love : a life after residential school cover

Kind Hearted Woman (Documentary)
In a special two-part series, acclaimed filmmaker David Sutherland (The Farmer’s Wife, Country Boys) creates an unforgettable portrait of Robin Charboneau, a 32-year-old divorced single mother and Oglala Sioux woman living on North Dakota’s Spirit Lake Reservation. Sutherland follows Robin over three years as she struggles to raise her two children, further her education, and heal herself from the wounds of sexual abuse she suffered as a child.
Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (Film)
On an isolated, surreal Australian homestead, a middle-aged Aboriginal woman nurses her dying white mother. The adopted daughter's attentive gestures mask an almost palpable hostility. Their story alludes to the assimilation policy that forced Aboriginal children to be raised in white families.
Warrior Women (Documentary)
Warrior Women is the story of Madonna Thunder Hawk, an AIM leader who cultivated a kindred group of activists' children, including her daughter Marcy, into the "We Will Remember" Survival School as a Native alternative to government education. Through their story, the film explores what it means to navigate a movement and motherhood, and how activist legacies pass from generation to generation under a colonizing government that meets Native resistance with violence.
WITHOUT A WHISPER - KONNON:KWE
Explore the untold story of how Indigenous women influenced the early suffragists in their fight for freedom and equality. Mohawk Clan Mother Louise Herne and Professor Sally Roesch Wagner shake the foundation of the established history of the women's rights movement in the United States. They join forces on a journey to shed light on the hidden history of the influence of Haudenosaunee Women on the women's rights movement, possibly changing this historical narrative forever.

Citing Indigenous Knowledge in APA

Citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers

What is a One Read?

A “One Read” is an event where everyone in a particular community reads the same book and comes together to discuss it. Think of it like a giant book club. Often in addition to a shared reading, there are a series of events that give context and relate to the book’s theme.

“People can go for days at a time not talking to anyone outside their immediate family. There are precious few opportunities for people of different ethnic background, economic levels or ages to sit down together and discuss ideas that are important to them this project provides that opportunity.” — Nancy Pearl, Director, Washington Center for the Book

“The idea is that the city that opens the same book closes it in greater harmony.” — Mary McGrory, The Washington Post, March 17, 2002

About the Author

Marcie Rendon smiling with her left hand touching her face

Marcie Rendon is a citizen of the White Earth Nation. In 2020, she became the first Native American woman to receive the McKnight Distinguished Artist award. Her novel, Girl Gone Missing, Cinco Puntos Press, is the second in the Cash Blackbear series. The first, Murder on the Red River (2017 Cinco Puntos Press) won the Pinckley Women’s Debut Crime Novel Award, 2018. It was a Western Writers of America Spur Award Finalist 2018 in the Contemporary Novel category. Two nonfiction children’s books are Pow Wow Summer (MN Historical Press) and Farmer’s Market: Families Working Together (CarolRhoda). Rendon was recognized as a 50 over 50 Change-maker by MN AARP and POLLEN, 2018. With four published plays she is the creative mind of Raving Native Theater. She curates community created performance such as Art Is…CreativeNativeResilience which features three Anishinabe performance artists on TPT Public Television, June 2019. Diego Vazquez and Rendon received the Loft’s 2017 Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship for their work with women incarcerated in county jails.

Rendon was featured in Oprah Magazine’s “31 Native American Authors to Read Right Now”: “Rendon’s Cash Blackbear series are gripping vehicles that tell broader stories about the historical persecution of American Indians.” (from the publisher)

More by Marcie Rendon

Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women Resources

#MMIW, #MMIWG and #MMIWG2S

The never-ending maze: Continued failure to protect Indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA
From Amnesty International, May 2022
The REDress Project
The REDress Project focuses around the issue of missing or murdered Aboriginal women across Canada. It is an installation art project based on an aesthetic response to this critical national issue. The project has been installed in public spaces throughout Canada and the United States as a visual reminder of the staggering number of women who are no longer with us.
Minnesota forms nation’s first state office on missing, murdered Indigenous people
July 6, 2021 MPR story
Sovereign Bodies Institute
Sovereign Bodies Institute (SBI) builds on Indigenous traditions of data gathering and knowledge transfer to create, disseminate, and put into action research on gender and sexual violence against Indigenous people. Includes the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2-Spirit People (MMIWG2) database.
MN Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force Report (2020)
The Minnesota Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force acknowledges and addresses the historic, persistent, human, and Indigenous rights violations and abuses found within our state. This Task Force is intent on unearthing the root causes behind the historic violence against Indigenous women, girls, and two spirit (LGBTQQIA) people.
Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota (2011)
The goal of this report was to assess the life circumstances of Native women in prostitution in Minnesota, a group of women not previously studied in research. Native women are at exceptionally high risk for poverty, homelessness, and sexual violence which are elements in the trafficking of women.
Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center
Works with clients and partners to deliver a comprehensive array of services & maintain an extensive referral network.
Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition
MIWSAC has worked since 2001 to end gender-based violence and enhance Tribal, state, and federal responses to sexual violence and sex trafficking.
National Indigenous Women's Resource Center
Their mission is to provide national leadership to end violence against American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian women by supporting culturally grounded, grassroots advocacy.
Where's the media attention for missing Indigenous women?
MPR show with Angela Davis (50 min. show)

Native Justice

Ain Dah Yung Center (St. Paul)
Meaning "Our Home" in Ojibwe, Ain Dah Yung Center provides a healing place within the community for American Indian youth and families to thrive in safety and wholeness.
Cultural Survival
A nonprofit dedicated to advancing Indigenous Peoples' rights & cultures worldwide. In pursuit of this mission, the organization publishes Cultural Survival Quarterly, a magazine highlighting the experiences of Indigenous people.
Honor the Earth
Honor the Earth uses indigenous wisdom, music, art, and the media to raise awareness and support for Indigenous Environmental Issues. They leverage this awareness and support to develop financial and political capital for Indigenous struggles for land and life.
Indian Law Resource Center
The Center provides legal assistance to indigenous peoples of the Americas to combat racism and oppression, to protect their lands and environment, to protect their cultures and ways of life, to achieve sustainable economic development and genuine self-government, and to realize their other human rights.
Mending the Sacred Hoop
Mending the Sacred Hoop works from a social change perspective to end violence against Native women and children while restoring the safety, sovereignty, and sacredness of Native women.
Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light
The Line 3 Expansion is a massive tar sands oil pipeline under construction that, if completed, would pass extremely close to the border of multiple Native nations and across hundreds of miles of treaty-protected land, which those communities depend on for drinking water and wild rice gathering. MNIPL will not give up on working to #StopLine3!
MN350
MN350’s Pipeline Resistance Team (PRT) organizes Minnesotans to oppose Line 3, a tar sands oil pipeline proposed through the northern part of the state and across the Mississippi headwaters. By opposing the pipeline, they work to protect indigenous communities, Minnesota’s waters, and the climate, all of which are under threat from Line 3.
21-Day Racial Justice Indigenous Challenge
Each day, for 21 days, pick one resource or activity to do.

As We Have Always Done by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

What Does Justice Look Like? by Angela Cavender Wilson

We Are Still Here by Laura Waterman Wittstock (Text); Dick Bancroft (Photographer)

More Like "Girl Gone Missing"

Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Even As We Breathe by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle

The Red Bird All-Indian Traveling Band by Frances Washburn

Five Little Indians by Michelle Good cover

American Indians in Children's Literature
Established in 2006 by Dr. Debbie Reese of Nambé Pueblo, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books. Dr. Jean Mendoza joined AICL as a co-editor in 2016.