For Muriel Borst Tarrant, the only Native American in her Brooklyn neighborhood, her crouch was her sanctuary.
Tarrant grew up on DeGraw Street between Court Street and Smith Street in Red Hook in the 1970s.
“This whole neighborhood was Italian,” she explained, but the Smith Street area was considered a Puerto Rican enclave. Being of neither ethnicity, she was often mistaken for both.
“If you went to the candy store down the block, the Puerto Ricans would think you were Italian and they would chase you down the block,” she recalled. “So I would go to another candy store and the Italians would think I was Puerto Rican and they would chase me all the way around the block.
“Because of that, I wasn’t allowed to leave my stoop.”
Her harrowing and hilarious childhood experiences are now the subject of her one-woman show.Stories from Tipi's Stoop” will be performed at FiDi’s Perelman Performing Arts Center from January 9th to 11th.
Tarrant remembered his family's nickname.
“If they liked you, they called you 'Indian,' 'Mr. Indian.' 'Indian,' 'Mrs. she told the Post.
Tarrant is of the Kuna and Rappahannock tribes of Virginia and was born and raised in Red Hook.
“My family moved to New York City in the 1800s, when Brooklyn was considered rural,” she said.
Her mother still lives in her childhood home, which her great-grandparents bought, and legend has it that her neighbors opposed her move to the borough.
“As we say in the play, this is the story of the tipi. There was a petition going around saying we wouldn't buy it,” she said.
Artistic director Tarrant is safe harbors new yorkAlthough it was an effort to promote indigenous performing arts, he recalls that Red Hook was “run by the mafia” at the time.
“They were very kind people in nice suits who bought me raffle tickets and paid for my wedding and funeral,” she said.
With mobs in the streets, there was no crime and things like parking tickets disappeared.
“I think at least once in my life, my friend Johnny, who owned the pizza shop on the corner, had his bike stolen, and it was like the biggest crime of all time,” she said.
“And if someone gets a ticket in front of a fire hydrant, someone comes and says to the officer, 'Hey, we don't do that here,' and they take the ticket and tear it up. One time I was parked in front of a fire hydrant and I was so upset and I was like, 'What happened around here?'
Tarrant, who now lives in New Jersey, started planning the show before the pandemic. her husband, Kevindirector of a nonprofit organization in New York City American Indian Community House. Sadly, he passed away in 2020 at the age of 51 from COVID-19.
She said she used themes of anger born from her own experiences growing up and the death of a spouse in her work.
“My first director was my husband. So, as a widow, what do you do with that anger? And for me, it was about putting it all into my work.”
Tarrant, who also chaired the United Nations' Indigenous Women's Caucus, hopes her play will shed light on the experiences of indigenous people in the Big Apple, who are often left out of history books.
“We have the immigrant experience, the Black experience. But we never talk about the Native experience. We only talk about it in the past,” she said.
“And I want everyone to understand that here in New York City, we have a living, thriving Native community that will never leave. And we will always be here, surviving. I did.
“When New York was New York, before all the Ohioans messed with New York.”
