(Federal Register Notice)

Deborah Miranda is an Indigenous poet and scholar who has stated “my body is an archive.” Her poem below, “You bring out the abalone in me”, beautifully illuminates this. She’s not alone in voicing this sentiment, especially amongst artists. The incarnation of history in the contemporary body creates an indelible image of the long-lasting and visible path dependency in our actions as well as those we document from others’ impacts on our people. The body is proof of the joys and evils inflicted over time, fleetingly limited by lifespan in the individual, but more permanent over the course of generations – barring extinctions. It is not an exaggeration to say that the current administration is reaching toward extinctions in myriad forms, from its grotesque plans for Gaza and Greenland, its efforts at mass deportation (now criticized by the Pope), to its indecent arguments against birthright citizenship for Native Americans. 

You bring out the abalone in me
- Deborah A. Miranda, after "You bring out the Mexican in Me" ©Sandra Cisneros, from her collection of poems, Loose Woman.

You bring out the abalone in me. The slick, slippery flesh in me. The hard-silk iridescent shell. The bitter tannin. The acorn meat on a wide flat stone, the pounding that goes on for days. For you, I would give up my white flour, white 
sugar, lactose-laden milk addiction. Eat your gourmet locavore meals, 
decolonize my diet. - uh-hu, Uh-huh. For you.

You bring out the frenzied tail-whipping salmon in me. The sweet mother-of-pearl in me. The Monterey estuary thick with silver backs. The thrashing homeward past grizzlies gorging with scaly grins. The strategic wildfire in me. The trigger of seeds snapping open. The green flask of life in ashes. The Big Sur tempest in me. The rogue wave surge, swallow-tourists-sweep-them-halfway-to-Hawaii-in-seconds in me. The dolphin in me. The legend of 
rainbow bridge, sinewy people of the sea in me. The San Francisco 
quake n'bake in me. The fear of drought in me. Yes, you do. You do.

You bring out the Bear Dance in me. The Deer Dance of desire in me. The Swordfish Dance stab in me. The dove gray cocoon rattles in me. The elderberry clappersticks in me. The priest's cross decorated with feathers and shells in me. Deer one. Me tulecita, I am the hunter you will lie down for, obsidian knife kisses your jugular. Your heart belongs to me; no 
amar dios, no neofita, no kidnapped conversation. 

I want to bathe in your blood and be cleansed. I want to strip you naked as only pagans can be. I want to caste out your demons in the thick black air of the sweat lodge. You bring out the abalone in me, tanoch, and you like it. 

You bring out the martyrdom of priests in me. The burning-arrows-in-the-Mission-thatched-roofs in me. The Tears of the Sun Rebellion in me. The Toypurina guerilla woman leader in me. The 1802 measles epidemic in me. The God's Will fever of smallpox in me. The bad aguaguardiente home brew in me. The San Andreas rattlesnake of jealousy. 
The intergenerational postcolonial stress syndrome, late-night craving for wine in me. 
Ay.

I am savage. I am Coyote's heathen twin. I am the flooder of continents. The hard white marble mountain top of creation. The single footprint of the only survivor. You bring out the pre-contact Eden in me. The love medicine 
basket weaving in me. The U.S. government lie and '49er lust in me. 
The Eighteen Unratified Treaties in me. 

Green turtle. Quicksilver. Black and Gold. Mugwort. Cedar. White sage. Angelica root. All you ancestors, saved and unsaved, Momoy, Eagle, I see you. kaiusen cha'a me. sinne me xawan. sinne me. kaiusan inlam. ka muisin, ka mec mui'sin exe. 
Love the way an abalone woman loves. 
Iridescent, salty, untamed. 
Let me 
uncivilize you.

These efforts are clearly fear driven. The administration seems to fear more traditional archivists as well. Trump has fired the head of the National Archives Colleen Shogan, and has a list of others that he threatens to fire. (He’s apparently given the job temporarily to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose list of chores is getting very long indeed.) His vendetta against the record-keepers stems at least in part from their role in the Mar-A-Lago documents crimes he committed. However Dr. Shogan was not the head Archivist during the Justice Department investigations into the missing/stolen documents. She did not publish the Equal Rights Amendment at the end of the Biden administration, as many were encouraging her to do in fear of the incoming administrations expected attacks on women’s rights. (Those attacks do certainly seem to be coming forward rapidly and broadly with little impediment, in every dimension from Trump’s own and most of his administration leadership’s status as guilty of sexual assault or worse to the SAVE Act, the government-wide assault on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access efforts [that have had greatest benefit for white women], to trying to erase transgender rights – the list goes on.) So it seems there may be a more institutional-level attack in progress. But why? I cannot say for sure. But I know that agenda setting is well understood as a way to control the conversation and the potential paths forward. What role do the Archives play in agenda setting? And what can you do about it?

In addition to storing presidential records and cool documents like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and codified laws (and their changes over time), the National Archives have the hum-drum sounding job of publishing the Federal Register every day. The daily register doesn’t just post changes to the law. It also publishes daily information on administrative regulations and notices. So not only is this where you find the legal code of the United States (that the Administration is trying so hard to ignore) but also where the various administrative bodies’ agendas for meetings are published. As well as how to join the meetings. And how to comment on various actions, whether they be recommendations for Environmental Economic Accounting to improve our ability to measure well-being or proposed SEC rule changes. The commenting options are made more straightforward with the accompanying regulations.gov website – so for example if you want to comment on Environmental Economic Accounts guidance please do so here, with which we should all become as familiar as possible.

This is an excellent place to voice your concerns and share your knowledge for the record!

Control of the agenda establishes control of the potential paths forward. The current published policy agenda appears to be the rather dystopian Project 2025 (see here for quick “Schoolhouse Rocks” version) and the “unitary executive“. There is rather uncertain legal basis for this, especially with the extreme disregard the Administration is showing toward the law in general. If the autonomy of the Archives and the Federal Register are breached, Musk’s AI henchmen’s broad access to the government’s electronic body and archive may mean that it is under threat the same way data removals have plagued government science websites. Keep taking action and care for the record-keepers. Let’s not have this Administration’s agenda be archived in any more bodies.

Poem credit: https://www.deborahmiranda.com/projects-8

Image credit: “US National Archives Building” by David Samuel, User:Hellodavey1902 is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.