Rebecca Nagle and Daisy Hernandez examine how citizenship has been granted, denied, and weaponized—and how both the Cherokee and Mexican American experience reveal the contradictions at the heart of who this country says belongs here.
Rebecca Nagle
Rebecca Nagle is an award winning journalist and citizen of Cherokee Nation. Nagle’s debut book, By The Fire We Carry: the Generations-long Fight for Justice on Native Land, was an instant national bestseller, a New Yorker Book of the Year and won the J. Anthony Lukas Prize and was a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize and numerous other awards. Nagle is also the writer and host of the podcast This Land. Nagle lives in Tahlequah, OK.
By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land
An “impeccably researched” (Washington Post) work of reportage and American history that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation’s earliest days, and a small-town murder in the 1990s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land more than a century later. Rebecca Nagle recounts the generations-long fight for tribal land and sovereignty in eastern Oklahoma. By chronicling both the contemporary legal battle and historic acts of Indigenous resistance, By the Fire We Carry stands as a landmark work of American history. The story it tells exposes both the wrongs that our nation has committed and the Native-led battle for justice that has shaped our country.
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Cascade PBS Ideas Festival
The Cascade PBS Ideas Festival is a full-day event featuring live podcast recordings and studio television tapings by The Atlantic, NPR, The New Yorker, CNN, PBS, Pushkin, and more. Watch live as journalists, newsmakers, and thought leaders -like Nancy Pelosi, Laverne Cox, Ibram X. Kendi, Tonya Mosley, and Robby Hoffman- take on compelling topics and headlines making the news. Plus, community meetups, speaker meet-and-greets, micro-sessions, food trucks, DJs, -and surprises. Join us on June 6th at Fremont Studios, The Picklr and Hidden Hall in the heart of Seattle's Fremont neighborhood.



2026 SPEAKERS
Laverne Cox
Emmy-winning actress, producer, LGBTQ+ advocate, and author
Nancy Pelosi
Speaker Emerita, United States Congress
Ibram X. Kendi
Author, Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age
Monica Lewinsky
Activist, Writer, Producer
Tonya Mosley
Co-Host Fresh Air / Creator and Host of Truth Be Told
Kenny Mayne
Former ESPN Host, Podcast Host
Robby Hoffman
Emmy-winning writer, Emmy-nominated actor, and Comedian
Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
Author of America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries
Knute Berger
Host, Mossback's Northwest
Adam Schiff
U.S. Senator, California
Nick Zentner
Geologist, Host of Nick on the Rocks
Patricia Murphy
Host, Seattle Now / KUOW
Hanna Rosin
Host, Radio Atlantic
Tyler Foggatt
Host, The Political Scene
Danielle Pletka
Distinguished Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Kevin Sur
Host, KEXP's Sounds of Survivance
Paris Jackson
Host, The Newsfeed
David Rind
Host of CNN Podcast, "One Thing"
Girmay Zahilay
King County Executive
Rebecca Nagle
Writer and Host, First America
Laura Gibson
Musician / Writer
Daisy Hernández
Author, Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth
Molly Webster
Senior Correspondent, Radiolab Co-Host
Gene Tagaban
Storyteller, Speaker, Mentor, Teacher and Counselor of the Spirit
Julia Ioffe
Author, MOTHERLAND: A Feminist History of Modern Russia; Founding Partner, Washington Correspondent at Puck
Steve Phillips
Host of Democracy in Color podcast, Author, and Columnist at The Guardian, The Nation
Hozoji Matheson-Margullis
Musician, Helms Alee, Lozen, Tacos!, and Uukwuuk
John Donvan
Moderator-in-Chief
Brangien Davis
Cascade PBS, Arts and culture writer / television host
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Theoretical Physicist and Cosmologist, Author of The Edge of Space and Time
