ASU Book Group: 'My Heart Is Bound Up with Them' by David Martinez

The ASU Book Group's February 2025 reading selection is "My Heart Is Bound Up with Them: How Carlos Montezuma Became the Voice of a Generation,” by David Martinez, (Akimel O'odham/Hia-Ced O'odham/Mexican) professor of American Indian Studies, School of Transborder Studies. The book group is open to all in the ASU community and meets monthly from noon to 1 p.m. with two different options for attendance: either in-person at Hayden Library, room 317* or virtually on Zoom. Register to attend in person or to receive a Zoom link.

In-person attendees are invited to join the author for lunch after at the University Club, no-host.

Haven't read the book? Come anyway! Authors are always present.

*Note new in-person location for 24-25.

Synopsis

During an attempt to force the Fort McDowell Yavapai community off of their traditional homelands north of Phoenix, the Yavapai community members and leaders wrote to Montezuma pleading for help. It was these letters and personal correspondence from his Yavapai cousins George and Charles Dickens, as well as Mike Burns that sparked Montezuma’s desperate but principled desire to liberate his Yavapai family and community — and all Indigenous people — from the clutches of an oppressive Indian Bureau. 

About the book group

The ASU Book Group meetings and selections for 2024–25 are:

• Oct. 24 - "License to Travel" by Patrick Bixby

• Nov. 21 - “Elvis and the Colonel” by Marshall Terrill

• Dec. - no meeting

• Feb. 27 - "My Heart Is Bound Up with Them” by David Martinez

• Mar. 27 – TBD 

• Apr. 24 – “Mindscape of the Land” by Ryan Mores

The ASU Book Group is sponsored as a community outreach initiative hosted in partnership between the Department of English and ASU Library.