AMY BOWERS CORDALIS & DR. ERICA TOM

SANTA ROSA --

Copperfield’s Books is thrilled to welcome Amy Bowers Cordalis to Santa Rosa in celebration of her powerful debut - .

She will be joined in conversation by Dr. Erica Tom, local artist and Ethnic Literature specialist at Santa Rosa Junior College.

Join us for a reading and warm discussion followed by an audience Q&A and book signing.

This is a free event, registration required for seating.

A moving multigenerational memoir of Indigenous resistance, environmental justice, and a Yurok family's fight to protect their legacy and the Klamath River.

For the members of a Northern California tribe, salmon are the lifeblood of the people—a vital source of food, income, and cultural identity. When a catastrophic fish K*ll devastates the river, Amy Bowers Cordalis is propelled into action, reigniting her family's 170-year battle against the U.S. government.

In a moving and engrossing blend of memoir and history, Cordalis propels readers through generations of her family’s struggle, where she learns that the fight for survival is not only about fishing—it’s about protecting a way of life and the right of a species and river to exist. Her great-uncle's landmark Supreme Court case reaffirming her Nation’s rights to land, water, fish, and sovereignty, her great-grandmother’s defiant resistance during the Salmon Wars, and her family's ongoing battles against government overreach shape the deep commitment to justice that drives Cordalis forward.

When the source of the fish K*ll is revealed, Cordalis steps up as General Counsel for the Yurok Tribe to hold powerful corporate interests accountable, and to spearhead the largest river restoration project in history. The Water Remembers is a testament to the enduring power of Indigenous knowledge, family legacy, and the determination to ensure that future generations remember what it means to live in balance with the earth.

"Triumphant story and ever widens the awareness of the dangers that threaten Indigenous people and their historic lands."—Congressman Jared Huffman

“A Civil Action meets Braiding Sweetgrass, a story of Indigenous survival and triumph from an Indigenous perspective.”—Ash Davidson, author of Damnation Spring

"Amy Bowers Cordalis proves determination can save a river. The Water Remembers is an important record of how the Klamath became a battleground and a blueprint for action for future generations." -- Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia

Author:

Amy Bowers Cordalis is a mother, fisherwoman, attorney, and a member and former General Counsel of the Yurok Tribe—the largest tribe in California. Formerly a staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, she is the currently the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Ridges to Riffles Conservation Indigenous Group, a nonprofit representing Native American tribes in natural and cultural resource matters where she works on advancing tribal sovereignty, water rights, fisheries, and the undamming of the Klamath River. She is also the recipient of the UN's highest environmental honor, Champion of the World Laureate and has been named to the second annual TIME100 Climate list (2024), featuring the 100 most influential leaders driving business to real climate action.

Erica Tom (she/they) is descended from immigrants, colonizers, and refugees from Asia and Europe, living in Southern Pomo territory. They are an Ethnic Literature specialist in the English Department at Santa Rosa Junior College, affiliated faculty with the Cultural Resource Management Masters Program at Sonoma State University, founder of Equi-Sense, a therapeutic horsemanship nonprofit, and a student of fire and Chairman Ron W. Goode of the North Folk Mono Tribe. Tom’s queerness, mixedness, heritage and response-ability, informs their work as an artist, educator, firelighter, and therapeutic horsemanship facilitator, and their desire to be a good relative to our beyond human kin.

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