The illuminating and deeply personal debut from Gabriela Maya Bernadett, Stories My Grandmother Told Me explores culture, race, and chosen family, set against the backdrop of the twentieth-century American Southwest. In a hilly Southern California suburb in the late twentieth century, Gabriela Maya Bernadett listens as her grandmother tells her a story. It's the true story of Esther Small, the great-granddaughter of slaves, who became one of the few Black students to graduate from Nyu in the 1940s. Having grown up in Harlem, Esther couldn't imagine a better place to live, especially not somewhere in the American Southwest. But when she learns of a job teaching Native American children on a reservation, Esther decides to take a chance. She soon finds herself on a train to Fort Yuma, Arizona, unaware that each year, the Bureau of Indian Affairs kidnaps the native Tohono O'odham children from the reservation and forces them to be educated in the and ways of the White man. It doesn't take long for Esther to notice how Fort Yuma parallels her own grandmother's story as a slave in the South the native children, constantly belittled by teachers and peers, are forced to perform manual labor for local farmers. One of two Black people in Fort Yuma, Esther feels isolated, never sure where she belongs in a community deeply divided between the White people and the Tohono O'odhams. John.