Adriana Herrera: 0:02

In a Western, no outside force can prevent someone from being whatever they want to be. The West is all about untapped potential and who gets there first to exploit it.

Nikki Payne: 0:13

It's a big juicy vagina.

Adriana Herrera: 0:15

Welcome to the Unbound podcast, the podcast that explores the intersection of pop culture and steamy world of romance literature. Join us as we celebrate the voices and stories often left in the shadows and unravel the threads of joy, passion and heartache that keep us all coming back to the page on the screen. I'm Adriana.

Nikki Payne: 0:36

Herrera and I write romance novels with hot and horny Latina people and I'm Nikki Payne and I write steamy romance based on the books you're forced to read in high school, and we're about to embark on a journey of the heart of the American frontier, not as you know it, but as it actually was. Welcome to Unbound, a podcast where we dive deep into the unexplored terrains of the romance subgenres through the BIPOC lens. We're going to be unearthing histories and intertwining them with broader cultural contexts of the time, and each series is going to focus on a specific subgenre, unraveling its nuances and evolution. Our inaugural series, for which you are here now, is how the West Was Won, and it's a journey through the rugged yet romantic world of cowboy romance.

Adriana Herrera: 1:23

Journey through the rugged yet romantic world of cowboy romance. We will also talk about the pioneers like Herb Jeffries, who made films like Harlem of the Prairie, aimed specifically at Black audiences in the 1930s, and Pedro Infante, a Mexican actor who brought vaqueros and rancheras to the Hispanic-speaking world. The creation of the frontier myth and its romanticization in American culture. The westernist genre and how its themes are the perfect landscape for romance.

Nikki Payne: 1:51

Wait, wait, wait, Wait. Before we get started, here's the thing that we need to acknowledge the queen Adriana, the queen herself, has given our first season a blessing. The queen herself has given our first season a blessing.

Adriana Herrera: 2:07

Beyonce's gone west. Y'all Amen. And there will be favorite tracks, a lot of conversation, because Cowboy Carter truly is the blessing of 2024. But, for the sake of time, we've got to get back to business and we will be talking about Beyonce's country album, cowboy Carterter. Why so many people of color call it white people's music? And we dive into western media, romance novels, of course, classic films and black post like quotation films sorry, english is my second language. English, motherfucker, do you speak it? That complicate our conceptions of the west. And lastly, we ask the question what happens when the perspective shifts? Doesn't matter who is telling the story. I think it does.

Nikki Payne: 2:52

So let's think of the west as a vagina I have been saying, adriana, it's a big juicy vagina. Let's picture this vast deserts, towering mountains, endless skies. The western genre has painted a picture of the american west that is ripe for the claiming, ripe for plunder, for cultivation, for mastery. Does that sound familiar?

Adriana Herrera: 3:17

well, kind of yeah. The west as we've been told through dime novels, silver screen epics, is a story, a narrative that's crafted with as much care as the movies themselves, and while the tales have captivated audiences for generations, they've also woven a myth, a myth that's often excluded the very people who shaped the West. What is Western as genre and what is the Western myth in fiction? According to John Trudy, the Western as a genre encapsulates the essence of all American storytelling. It's the belief that we can reinvent ourselves at any time, over and over again. In a Western, no outside force can prevent someone from being whatever they want to be. The West is all about untapped potential and who gets there first to exploit it. Vagina, vagina, and so the themes of the Western are in many ways the quintessential hero's journey from the white male gaze. I mean comment, like you can just see john wayne strolling in with his little like hop that he had yeah yeah, with his like little holster, with his gun and the hat tipped, just so.

Adriana Herrera: 4:39

yeah, a stranger rolls into town on his horse, finds the town in turmoil and makes them right. By the end of the book or show, the Rolling Stone has established order in a lawless town, has cultivated a dry climate or won the love of a wild woman or horse. Always a horse Always always a horse.

Nikki Payne: 4:59

There's always a horse to tame Like. What is that?

Adriana Herrera: 5:02

I mean, do you remember? I there's. The horses are as iconic as the characters remember silver from the lone ranger yes, absolutely so. I remember mr ed, like that was a woman about a talking, the horse was the star, a man on his horse is a thing that we probably don't have time to explore in this season, but it is a thing so I probably don't have time to explore in this season, but it is a thing. So I mean, yeah, like the Western is how we show the new gods of the American frontier.

Nikki Payne: 5:33

And thinking back, like what is your sense of the Western? Do you have a memory of seeing Black people in Westerns?

Adriana Herrera: 5:40

Blazing Saddles comes to mind, classic. What we start with in the season is a simple question what is the West really? What are the stories we haven't heard, and how do they change our understanding of what the American West was and is?

Nikki Payne: 5:59

Do you think the Black or Brown Western is a different story?

Adriana Herrera: 6:04

Yeah. That's what the season is going to be adriana.

Nikki Payne: 6:08

You know those comedy shows like comic view. I used to watch those when I was little and the entire cachet for comic view was like white people do things like this and black people do things like this. Isn't that funny?

Nikki Payne: 6:21

hilarious oh yeah, it was. It was what we watched and what we continue to watch every friday for, with these comedians to parse out the differences between black reactions to modern events of our time. But I think in the western we could actually ask this question Do brown and black folk do things, particularly do the West, differently?

Adriana Herrera: 6:47

I mean, I certainly think so, because in the end we approach it in a completely different way, because so much of our storytelling is about the survival of the community. We can't survive in isolation. Riding off into the sunset on a horse on our own is not viable for us, because what are we going to find in the great unknown? Um, so community survival, liberation for us all, is the ultimate goal, not law and order. So the the very idea of the western from the white gaze, where it's like re-establishing order is the end goal, just fundamentally doesn't work for people of color okay, this is a perfect time to finally talk about beyonce.

Nikki Payne: 7:33

When we talk about just going into a genre and busting it up, right, country is all about order. It's all about who gets play on the radio. It's all about does this sound like country? Where is this person from? Does this fit into the genre? And for Beyonce to come in with her elbows ablaze saying this is a Beyonce album, right, and this is the genre, she's literally doing the thing that we say black folks do, right Is destabilizing the particular law and order of the genre. So she's the queen from houston and she stepped into the spotlight with this huge country album and it's already redefined what country music is. So she's already done the job. Right, like quote from beyonce. You know, you that bitch, when you cause all this conversation. So she's already done it okay, but like.

Nikki Payne: 8:25

But again, this was a huge controversy like this raised outright. This raised eyebrows when she first um performed with the dixie chicks. And the outright exclusion of black artists face in the country music scene is also something that beyonce, you know, trying to shed a light on. You guys remember. I don't know if you guys remember that CMA performance when she went on stage with the Dixie, with the chicks I call them the Dixie chicks. When she went on stage with the chicks it wasn't just oh, this is a performance, it was a statement, a challenge to the gatekeepers of the genre that owe as much to Black musicians as it does to the white counterparts.

Nikki Payne: 9:07

So, growing up in Houston, like hitting up the Houston Live Sexual Rodeo, beyonce knows this world inside and out, but more than that, she's illuminating this past, kind of back to the roots of country music that are as black as they are Southern and American and universal.

Nikki Payne: 9:24

This is a whole other discussion on like what is a universal experience, but we won't go into that. So in doing that, she's challenging our understanding of that genre, breaking down those barriers and the law and order essentially of the genre. That's why Cowboy Carter is just a great vehicle for us to kind of invite you all to reimagine this narrative of the American cowboy and the American West itself. So we're not going to get ahead of ourselves Y'all. I can talk all day, because Cowboy Carter is going to be its own little episode. We're going to just dive into that ourselves. So, from the black and brown gaze, the West could be a place to start fresh or have the freedom to be who you'd like to be or to find your people. I think the goal of talking about media, beyonce and books is thinking about how Black and Brown people have used the West to actually liberate themselves, to actually think about freedom and to actually break down unjust laws.

Adriana Herrera: 10:28

So I mean, I think, just as an aside, I'm thinking, I've been thinking about storytelling with Western specifically, and thinking about how, like we have this season, we're going to talk about Beverly Jenkins and other Black storytellers, but thinking about Cowboy Carter and the way she starts and ends that album it's about us, it's acknowledging we're in a moment where we could change things like American Requiem is, you know, written by John Batiste, arguably probably the most brilliant musician alive right now in America, probably the most brilliant musician Alive right now in America, and Somebody as well. Yeah, and ends also looking to. I know we've been through a lot and so I think that is A perfect, kind of like Way to think about how the Black Western Oper, western, operates. It's looking to us as a moment of possible change and then and again being about how we've made out how, how we are, how the we is, how the us is the collective yes, and it speaks to.

Nikki Payne: 11:41

What kind of person would you have to be to brave that space, to brave that territory? Who would go into the unknown and try to conquer it? Which is where setting comes in.

Adriana Herrera: 11:54

What is it in the setting itself that makes the Western a particular kind of story?

Nikki Payne: 12:01

The setting itself begets the story. The wide expanse, blue skies, skies, nothing as far as the eye can see. You have to be a certain type of person to try to throw yourself into that so stay with us, because we're just getting started.

Adriana Herrera: 12:16

The myths are unraveling y'all, and what we find beneath might just change everything hey y'all.

Nikki Payne: 12:25

Welcome back to Unbound, the romance podcast where we're saving a horse and riding a cowboy into the West. I'm Nikki Payne and today I'm super excited to introduce our very first guest, someone you might have seen on shows like the Today Show or featured in literary havens like Lit Hub. She's the brilliant mind behind some of the most engaging bookish content out there. Satoria Ray is everything y'all. She's a bookish content creator who reads across genre and identity. Her content focuses primarily on that intersection of reading and liberation. When she's not reading, however, she can be found exploring all of NYC and complaining about grad school which, sis, I still do. Okay, sat sis, we've been watching you. We've been watching you, baby, and we saw you recently pick up a Beverly Jenkins Western.

Adriana Herrera: 13:20

Yes.

Nikki Payne: 13:28

Can you tell us a little bit about like what was your? What did you think of Westerns before you picked up a Beverly Jenkins? Like what was in your head when you're just like oh, I'm going to read a cowboy romance?

Adriana Herrera: 13:34

Like in historicals and.

Satoria Ray: 13:36

Westerns, yeah, okay. So here's the thing I always said I was not a historical romance person. I liked historical fiction, like I love Sadiqa Johnson, but I was not really into historical romance. And I think it was because I'm like a history teacher, history educator, and so, for me, like historical romance, it just never was something I was naturally drawn to. I was always drawn to historical fiction and so I had never read any historical romance or had any intention of reading historical romance, like it just was not something that was calling to me, but it was for the diverse baseline challenge.

Satoria Ray: 14:19

There was a prompt to read a historical romance and I was like, okay, what am I going to read? Like I don't, you know, I don't know anything about historical romance. My mutual, sometimes Robin Reed, loves Beverly Jenkins and I was like, okay, robin has never steered me wrong, so I'm going to pick up a Beverly Jenkins. I had no idea what to expect. I was like this is going to just be, you know, a historical take. There's not going to be any sex, there's not going to be any spice, like I, I didn't even that, didn't even cross my mind that that existed in the genre.

Adriana Herrera: 14:58

My back is weeping. My back is weeping.

Satoria Ray: 15:02

No, I, and maybe that's why I didn't pick it up, to be honest, maybe, like subconsciously, I was like I need a little bit of spice and in my mind, because in history as a historian, like we don't talk about sex, right, that happened in history. Like that's not. My background is in like the civil rights movement and like Black history. Like you're not thinking about sex when you think about the civil rights movement and like black history. Like you're not thinking about sex when you think about the civil rights movement. And so in my mind, my orientation to like historical romance was something that was very like asexual and just like very in tune to the history part. And maybe romance was the subplot.

Satoria Ray: 15:36

I picked up beverly jenkins and was like I've entered a new portal. I was like on the page Explicit, she said on the page Little queen. I was like I was like Beverly yeah, I've seen my aunties reading this. And then I was looking at them like okay, what are we? But it was just like a whole new world because one.

Satoria Ray: 16:04

It was like this beautiful combination of history that was very well researched, like you could tell that she really cared about being accurate with the history that she was telling, but also like the romance was so strong in it that it was like so forward that the history was almost the subplot, and this like beautiful way that I think only, like certain authors, can really manage the balance of not like doom and gloom Cause it could get doom and gloom very quickly If you think about the historical settings that she's writing about, but the balance of romance and with, like, the history, the history that she's writing about, was just so immaculate. I was like I like this and now I want to read more historical romance because I think that the combination of the two, when done right, is just like chef's kiss, perfect, agree agree, I mean.

Adriana Herrera: 16:58

I think I mean as a person that writes historical right and writes historical with Black women or Black Latinas, I think part of where, like the superpower, I think of historical romance from the Black and Brown gaze specifically, is that, again, because we are coming from that lens of, like, the history you've served us it's not the history that we know is there and we can deliver it with a happy ending, so that you know that you're safe in this space of learning about who we were in the past. And we're gonna give it to you with a little spice, yeah a little, it was forbidden that you read.

Satoria Ray: 17:37

I've read, yes, I've read forbidden and I've read indigo I mean, come on like listen.

Adriana Herrera: 17:42

This man draped an entire carriage in blue velvet for her. Maybe, Like I mean it's Ryan crossed the collar line for this woman, like literally gave up his personhood legally and then but it's also shrouded in this space of like, love is worth it and we were thriving and, like you know, people of color in our history in our context, in our settings, still got to thrive Like I mean I think I remember it's great.

Adriana Herrera: 18:14

Yeah, I remember talking to like a historian after I, after she read Caribbean heiress, and she's like a Latin American studies scholar and she was like I American studies scholar and she was like I think people like I think there's something to this of being able to deliver history about people of color through romance, cause she's like I've been shouting about how, like people in the Caribbean were like doing things and were like in places and studying and and no, she's like I've been talking about it for 30 years and I don't.

Adriana Herrera: 18:44

I don't think I've gotten through anyone but I. But I think this idea of delivering history through romance is is something, and beverly jenkins has known that since 1994.

Nikki Payne: 18:57

Well, let me tell you something. Caribbean heiress delivered me okay somewhere.

Adriana Herrera: 19:04

Okay, very personal, emotional, it made me feel something in my, in my body it's historically accurate that somebody got did some finger banging on the eiffel tower in 1880 and why do they be our?

Nikki Payne: 19:22

heroes and heroines right.

Satoria Ray: 19:23

No, for real. And that's what I love about historical romance, because, as a historian, like to be honest, especially a historian of, like, marginalized people's history nobody wants to hear about. Like the things that we were doing it's not attractive. Like even when you're writing papers and things like that, they're like is this accurate? And you're like, yeah, people had joy. Like that's, that's how we're here today. Like you know, like people wouldn't exist without joy, people wouldn't exist without romance.

Satoria Ray: 19:51

The fact that we have historical romance writers is a testament to the joy and love that our ancestors had to sustain our lineage for this long. And so it's like there was love, there was romance, there were all of these great things happening. But when you typically have history coming from like a very white supremacist lens, that joy gets regulated to the margins. And that's the power of historical romance written by marginalized people is that they pull out our stories from the margins and they center them. And when you have people who are marginalized writing about their ancestors and their history, they can include the joy because they know that their target audience isn't white people, right, so they know that we want to read about our ancestors being loved and being romanced and having the cart draped out, and if a white person picks up the book, great and you enjoy it, great. But at the end of the day, like this is for us and by us, and I think you just get a completely different story. That's the same history, but you turn the head on who's telling it and it opens up the doors to just so much more nuance and depth.

Satoria Ray: 21:02

And I think that that's what I love the most about historical romance is it says that like yes, slavery was happening. And I think that that's what I love the most about historical romance is it says that like yes, slavery was happening, and also, at the same time, this is how our people resisted, and love is like one of the most powerful forms of resistance. And so I just love historical romance in that way, because I think it really challenges dominant narratives of history that we've been fed to, especially us who went to school in the United States. Right, we've been fed a very singular viewpoint of history, and when you pick up a historical romance, you're like wait a minute, this is like this is historically accurate, Like this makes sense, like this, this makes a lot of sense, and so I just think that that's one of the powerful parts about it and like the second book after A Caribbean Harris.

Satoria Ray: 21:46

Right, you have two women who are your love interests in history. Like I would have to, like scrounge my history textbooks from my grad school and academia to find those stories. And here it's like front and center and I don't have to look, you know, into thousands and thousands of pages to try to pull out queer histories.

Adriana Herrera: 22:08

And that's another like beautiful part about being able to have historical romance writers is that these stories exist and they're saying, like these stories exist and here they are for you, yeah, I mean I completely, and I mean I think even for us right as like a larger diaspora, is so important to be able to read about each other's experiences and see the threads and like see how we were all able, in our own spaces and in our own systems of oppression, to thrive and live and like connect with each other in like these spaces that weren't like made for us but we like we found our way to.

Adriana Herrera: 22:46

Like I love thinking about places like New York City in like the late 1800s, where, like there were Cubans and there were Dominicans and there were Puerto Ricans making music together. Or Paris, where there were people of color studying because they could go to university, and to me, like thinking of like how our diaspora has always like found its way to each other. I think it's also like part of the power of historical romance, of like us seeing ourselves like mobility spaces and, yeah, sharing music, knowledge, yeah.

Satoria Ray: 23:25

Because we were just all dropped at different places, right, Like so we are all connected. It was just like you got dropped off here, I got dropped off here, but we all came from the same place. And so I think that that's like to your point, like really beautiful, and again, like that is another form of resistance, because white supremacy wants the diaspora to be in these like silos. But when you're able to connect the threads, that like actually we're all right, stemming from the same lineage, it just manifests in these different ways because of where we were literally dropped off. Like I think again that's another thing that I'm really excited to explore as I read more historical romance is being able to connect and see different histories that I myself am not even aware of.

Nikki Payne: 24:11

That was beautifully stated. I also clocked that for us by us reference hashtag FUBU 90s never die.

Nikki Payne: 24:21

Yes, fubu, I think is going to have like a renaissance now with the beef because, like Kendrick is bringing it back loops into this notion of like the way that we historically define blackness and the way that we are like attempting to determine and like engage with the diaspora about who is in the community and who is not, and we're actually having sometimes damaging but sometimes really fruitful conversations right now about what it actually means to be politically Black versus Black in your you know, like of African descent in your body Right, and people are teasing that out now, I think, because of the devastating you know.

Satoria Ray: 25:09

No, that's Nikki. Now my mind is like this is a whole thesis right here.

Nikki Payne: 25:14

I mean we don't have to get into this because we're talking about the West, but in my defense, california is the West.

Adriana Herrera: 25:22

In your defense. California is the West. It's been an interesting time to observe, right, like I personally, because I didn't grow up here. I came here when I was 23. And I've always loved hip hop.

Adriana Herrera: 25:33

But I feel like I mean someone was saying, like this is a conversation for people that, like, were born and raised in the U? S, right, and I don't disagree, like I'm very invested in it because I love Kendrick Um and Drake is Drake, and so, like I've been like observing it. But I don't disagree that there are there are contexts, right, where, like, we have threads, but there are conversations like it's why I never, why I chose, why I choose to write historical romance that's set not in the US, because it's in, in ways, it's not necessarily my story to tell, right, like I think it's, and I think it's important for me to tell the story of, of Dominican people, and Dominican people have been in the U? S but, like, primarily, we have been in other places and and and in the Caribbean, right, so I think it's like that's been interesting to me to see how much people feel like really convicted when they're told like they like you need to like sit back and observe and I'm like'm like I'm like riveted, but like I'm sad, you know yeah.

Satoria Ray: 26:45

No, there are certain like even just in cultural nuances, like there are certain things that like I just wouldn't understand if I didn't grow up in certain places. There's certain phrases, there's certain contexts, there's certain like unique histories that you get from growing up in a place. So I'm like yeah, I feel like I don't disagree with that either Like to get into the really nitty gritty of like Drake versus Kendrick, like you would have to have some sort of Black American context to really understand, like the arguments that both sides are making yeah I agree.

Adriana Herrera: 27:17

Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating, it's very fascinating.

Nikki Payne: 27:21

My, my feet is very riveting right now yeah, it's saying I wish I could like sea walk, you know, because all these videos I'm seeing people. Just, you know it's in me, okay, oh my God.

Adriana Herrera: 27:41

To that point.

Nikki Payne: 27:42

It is like human nature just to be like a anthropologist for a second to build boundaries around community, particularly for resources, to say, like that very important phrase they're not like us, he's not like us.

Nikki Payne: 27:57

Right, it's a way to signal, like these are the boundaries of this community and and the way that I'm rapping and the way that I'm seeing the world is are based on these very important boundaries.

Nikki Payne: 28:11

This is all about, like, when we're talking about reinventing the West and why Beverly Jenkins rivets us in ways that other Western stories don't, it's because she is also setting up this boundary to look at the West through these different eyes, right, like she's literally she's in her Lamar phase, like they, not like us. I'm going to, I'm going to show you exactly right. I'm going to show you exactly right, I'm going to show you exactly of what this world really was. I'm going to give you the context from my point of view and I think that's like that's also really powerful and important to be able to do in a romance, in a historical aspect, to say you have told this story of the West and people have eaten it up, but now I can tell this exact same story from my lens and it becomes a completely different story because you don't have this, this backpack, you don't have this experience that I have, and it makes the story that I tell different.

Satoria Ray: 29:05

Yeah, you know what this is reminiscent of.

Satoria Ray: 29:07

It's reminiscent of what Beyonce now, since we're talking about, since we're talking about our people, it's reminiscent of what Beyonce did with Lemonade.

Satoria Ray: 29:15

Since we're talking about our people, it's reminiscent of what Beyonce did with Lemonade, like there is a huge scholarship around Beyonce with Lemonade and basically taking a history that's been again told through the lens of whiteness and being like, no, like, I'm not doing that, this is my story now. She's like walking on the plantation knocking over chairs, like she's doing this whole reclamation of a history that's historically not been told by black people. And in lemonade, like, and the visuals of lemonade, specifically, really thinking about this reclamation of a history, and a lot of the scholarship talks about how you have to, like, reject the gaze of whiteness to do that. And I think that that's what Beverly Jenkins and a lot of marginalized authors who write historical romance have done, and that is why they're able to set these boundaries and tell such a unique story is because they specifically know who they're talking to and they're not concerned with, like, the other perspective. They're like, you already got that.

Nikki Payne: 30:15

Like that's in your history textbooks, that's everywhere.

Satoria Ray: 30:18

Go there Like I'm here to tell this story and this is the story and you're not going to get any other perspective, and I think that that's what makes it so powerful and that's when you can get into, like, the reinvention or the reclamation, when you fully reject the idea of like the white gaze on your story and you're able to just tell the story from your perspective and from your people's lens. I think that that's another beauty of like beyonce's lemonade, which I'm a fan of, but also like beverly jenkins work as well yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nikki Payne: 30:50

No, I agree, you just reminded me of the visuals of uh, lemonade and I would really very much call it plantation chic, like when you like the visuals, like the, the black women in white cotton, like on the trees, like it is absolutely yeah, yeah, and she's taking a plantation that like usually people like I don't stay away and she's like, no, we're going.

Satoria Ray: 31:15

She's literally sitting in that yellow dress on the plantation, like she's on a throne and she's like really reclaiming this sort of and it's just beautiful and it's like and I think that that's like another like confrontation with history to say that like the story you've been telling isn't necessarily the story. That's true, and I'm not going to allow you to continue to tell a story that is not rooted in the beauty of my people, the love of my people, and so, like I'm going to walk into the plantation, knock all of this down and like recreate the narrative that had always existed, like she's not making things up, this had always been what was happening. Same with Beverly Jenkins and the stories that she's telling. That this isn't a reach to say that what's happening in Beverly Jenkins stories happened in history. It's just not recorded in any textbook, and so I think that that's like another beautiful thing about sort of this reinvention of the West, as you call it.

Nikki Payne: 32:16

I mean honestly to that point as a as a Houston girly growing up with rodeo culture as just just in your veins and having Beyonce do this album that celebrates the experience of any of these, like the Southern rural Black experience, to say like, hey, we were cowboys, we were rodeo queens, we are like all of these things.

Adriana Herrera: 32:39

Like anyone in houston could understand that, that someone like that could make a rodeo album easily, because it's very much who, who we are yeah, and I think with I mean beyonce is an interesting one, right, because I think and for all of us, right I I think I've thought about this quite a lot since Cowboy Carter I mean Beyonce's like my everything, like she really is like the artist of my life.

Adriana Herrera: 33:02

I mean I could talk about her forever, but like in English, like I have that in Spanish, I have people in Spanish that I feel about that, but like she is like the artist of my life in English, like the artist of my life in English, and in her trajectory you can see her like really turning her back on the influence of pleasing, like a white gaze and a white palette and just really really honing in on like her own humanity as a Black woman.

Adriana Herrera: 33:31

Like do you remember that SNL skit right after Lemonade came out, when people were like beyonce is black and they were like running around and like buildings were burning or whatever? Yes, and I, I like it was funny, but also like like you can sense her like kind of like kind of shedding right, like that, like that the need to kind of accommodate. Yeah, and I think for us who come into romance, I've been reading romance since I was like 12 years old, I'm in my mid-40s and really loving it, like really thinking of romance as like a space where I really come for comfort and then as a having to really kind of take the like intentionally turning away from it from like that need to accommodate what romance as a genre has been which is so steeped in whiteness, and really go to like no, I can't.

Adriana Herrera: 34:32

I have to, really, if this is going to be what I came to do, which is to represent this experience that I have, and really like affirm that we deserve love, that we get it, that we have it, that we've always had it, you have to really do it intentionally and like it really, and once you do, then you have to like, do it like in this almost like container of like whiteness is not going to touch this because if it does, then it loses the effect almost, yeah, like. I feel like every Beyonce album gets blacker or more like for the future, since, like self-titled.

Adriana Herrera: 35:14

Yeah since like self-titled yeah and and and, like when artists like when you have that gaze like I think it just, it's just so noticeable, like yeah, but reading Beverly Jenkins, like the reading. I don't know. Alexandria House is like another author that I always think about when I'm thinking of someone who is writing just so in the pocket of who is of her reader. That, like you know, y'all can come and enjoy, but this is for a very specific person and community black hockey players like come on, I know and have you read her latest one?

Adriana Herrera: 35:49

it's like, uh, it's like it's a white rapper, she's. She's not black white rapper, she's an albino. Oh yeah, and he is. And she has like a tiger for a pet. I mean, it's just. Oh my gosh, that's incredible, and like Wesley Shielman, like does the raps and the. Anyway, it's so great In the audio book. Yeah, it's so great, it's so great In the audio book.

Adriana Herrera: 36:14

Yeah, it's so great. It's so great Again. Like I just think that there are people who have like that they're so clear on what, who the valued reader is, and it just comes through in the page like so clearly yeah, yeah.

Nikki Payne: 36:32

Y'all, this guy Are we being.

Adriana Herrera: 36:39

Are we like thinking about?

Nikki Payne: 36:41

stuff when we're like reading and writing. Yeah, no, this is the thing is and I don't mean this to shade, like like anyone, but like to to sometimes even to have to think about this, about historicity and about positionality and perspective. Even that is this burden on your writing, is this weight on your writing that not everyone? People just don't have to think about it. Someone can just open a bakery and fall in love with the cranky next door person at the at the shop, and then that's the whole story and it can become a bestseller and they are the recreational billionaire.

Nikki Payne: 37:27

Yeah, that's that becomes like even that work, that burden, that knowledge becomes something that we have to carry into our work and then like and sometimes when you see people not carrying it, you know there's this sense of like, what are you? You know, what are we doing here? Like, what are we? Do you mean to tell me we don't have to do this? But yeah, like not to get into like specifics. But you see, but yeah, like not to get into like specifics. But you see, you see, when people have carried the load or have done the work and are doing the thing, you know, yes, yeah, Because it's important, right, Like you always, like I remember when I was thinking I've known Ms Bev for a long time.

Adriana Herrera: 38:11

I've known Ms Bev for about seven, eight years and I remember having a conversation with her, like when RWA used to exist, that I wanted to write a historical and I was like this is what I wanted to do. But, like you know, at that point they really wouldn't buy historicals by people of color If the main characters were people of color. Like it's just not a market for it. And the first thing she told me was you better have your references, you better have your sources. Like you had to have that bibliography at the end of the book, because the first thing they're going to tell you is that none of this really happened and this was like I want to say 2017, 2018, this was a while

Adriana Herrera: 38:52

ago. And, um, because like she's I mean again like it's it's a woman that's been doing amazing work and she knows it comes at a cost to her. Like she, she's. She's so good that if she, she could have made other choices and perhaps, like you know, been Julia Quinn, but she chose not to be. She chose to like write the history that she felt was important. But even knowing like this is not going to be easy, like you know, like you're choosing, you're choosing a road that's going to be hard because people are going to question you a lot a bibliography like she's.

Satoria Ray: 39:27

Like she's a historian and a romance writer, like that. But I'm just like does is anyone else having to bring a bibliography? No, because we've just accepted that. Like yeah, that happened. Like that. But I'm just like does is anyone else having to bring a bibliography? No, because we've just accepted that. Like yeah, that happened.

Adriana Herrera: 39:39

Like that sounds yeah yeah so many guys that turn out to be, you know, marrying a dude, like so many governesses, yeah, so I mean, I think it is. That is like, again, like it's it's not easy, but again, like we know how important it is for us for readers to be able to pick up a book and see what, all the things that we've done, we didn't just hatch in 1984.

Nikki Payne: 40:13

Yeah we're here, okay, set Like we're. We're about to wrap, wrap up, but I have two more questions for you, okay, okay. The first question is when you think of a cowboy, when a cowboy okay, a cow hand, a cow person like erupts into your mind, what do you see? You?

Satoria Ray: 40:35

You know you said that and the first thing I said was the first thing that came to my mind was Rebecca Witherspoon's cover.

Nikki Payne: 40:41

to be honest, Rebecca's done the work.

Satoria Ray: 40:46

Like, but also like I grew up in the country, so like my orientation to like cowboys has always been Black people because I grew up around black country cowboys and so it's always been for me like yeah, my uncle, you know, like someone with a cowboy boots and a hat on, like out here, you know, in the yard. But when you said that, I literally picture the specific one. I think it's like a thorn in the saddle.

Satoria Ray: 41:14

It just like it came to my mind and I was like that's a cowboy, it's such a great cover too.

Adriana Herrera: 41:21

That's the one where he's got the yeah.

Nikki Payne: 41:24

Yeah, okay, first of all, I love that that book is in like the black imaginary as a cowboy. Yeah and yeah. And also Beverly Jenkins wants to know if your uncle has a mustache no, he has a beard though, okay, okay okay, yes we'll report back okay, yeah, let her know.

Satoria Ray: 41:50

Did he pass like pass or fail?

Nikki Payne: 41:55

okay, second question and we can wrap up on this. But what was the first thing, the first concert that you spent your money on, like, where did you go?

Satoria Ray: 42:12

that I spent my money on? Oh my god, that's difficult. Um, where did you go that I spent my money on? Yeah, oh my God, that's difficult. I think the first concert that I spent my money on was SZA Okay, okay, okay, and it was like, and it was a meet and greet, I remember, because I was like I'm doing big things.

Satoria Ray: 42:33

I was in college. I was like it was $25. But I was like I'm doing big things. Like I was in college. I was like it was it was $25, but I was like I'm doing big things, like I'm affording this like meet and greet, what says it was literally $25. This was like before she got really big. It was like in my like the city that's near my hometown, so it was in Greensboro, north Carolina. It was in this like tiny venue that didn't even have functioning AC, so people were like passing out literally the entire show. She's like singing and stopping and being like get them some water, get some water. Like it was a mess, but I think that that was my the first one that I paid for, because I vividly remember like I bought a new outfit for it, like it was a whole ordeal, and then I got to meet her.

Adriana Herrera: 43:18

Okay, that's iconic actually.

Satoria Ray: 43:19

Yeah.

Adriana Herrera: 43:20

Like she is, such a great artist she is, she's amazing To be in the early people to recognize her genius.

Satoria Ray: 43:29

No, she's good, I love her. That's because I spent I was raised on Tumblr and they loved her on Tumblr, so I very quickly was like oh, sza, that's my girl, that's a good one.

Adriana Herrera: 43:39

I love that one.

Nikki Payne: 43:41

Me too. We're collecting an archive. We hope to ask you, know everyone, this very interesting question. We think that the type of media that you choose, that you kind of go out and use your resources to like, experience, live or experience, it just says so much about, like, the type of um, sometimes, the type of reader that you are, that the way that you consume media, the way that you see the world, and we just love asking that um question to to everyone your curiosity.

Adriana Herrera: 44:09

Yeah, recognition of brilliance no, it's a great question yes, yes.

Nikki Payne: 44:15

Tell the world that you were just like.

Satoria Ray: 44:16

Sorry, I was first I almost passed out, but like listen, that's a great story.

Adriana Herrera: 44:22

I would get him some water oh my gosh.

Nikki Payne: 44:28

All right, seth. Thank you so much um this was fantastic this was compelling. This was everything that we knew it would be thank you, yeah, yeah, y'all were great.

Satoria Ray: 44:38

Thank you for having me.

Nikki Payne: 44:39

Awesome, this was great okay, now, if people want more of your hot takes and more tea and more information, where can they find you?

Satoria Ray: 44:47

so I am on tiktok at sat ray reads um, but follow me there and then instagram, because y'all know tiktok is up in the air right now. So on on Instagram at SatRayReads, and then in the bios of both of those accounts I have links where you can add me on Substack and I like flesh out a lot of the thoughts and things that I share on Instagram there.

Nikki Payne: 45:07

Do you want to talk about your auction?

Satoria Ray: 45:08

Yes, oh, yes, okay. So we, my friends and I, are currently hosting a Gaza book evacuation auction to raise as much funds as we can to help Palestinians in Gaza who are trying to escape to safety with their loved ones. It'll be going until May 12th. You can find us on Instagram at Gaza book auction that account. There's links to the auction where you can see a lot of wonderful items that have been donated from authors, content creators, industry professionals, artists, so on and so forth, but there's also the link to GoFundMes for different Palestinians. So if you can't find anything to bid on or you just like to donate, we have a bunch of GoFundMes that you can donate to as well.

Nikki Payne: 45:53

Thank you so much.

Satoria Ray: 45:54

Of course, thank you.

Adriana Herrera: 46:00

So the setting itself is part of the story. The stage of the Western is this untamed wilderness, the endless possibility of the West, the black canvas that you can reinvent like literally miles and miles and miles of nothing that you can shape into whatever you want to be or whatever you need it to be, just the thought of someone that would see all this vastness and think there's possibility here. It is a very particular kind of person.

Nikki Payne: 46:41

And that's why it's so effective on film. It's a great stage to start a story, to start any type of narrative.

Adriana Herrera: 46:49

And it's romantic. It requires a passionate character, someone with conviction, with vision, to make it in the West. Only the best, the strongest, the most persistent can survive, the tenacious can survive and thrive in the West. How do you do it without engaging with the dangers of such like treacherous territory? The Western from the white gaze is so much about the stress and seeing everything that is already there as the enemy uh, oh, everything that's already there.

Nikki Payne: 47:27

Uh, who's already there? Uh, the indigenous population. So is the western trope inherently genocidal?

Adriana Herrera: 47:37

I mean it depends, yeah, it depends. So, like red river and buck of the preacher, for instance. These two movies, one from 1948, starting John Way and Montgomery Clift one of my favorite old-timey Hollywood gays and the other from 1972, starting Sidney Pottier and Harry Rilafanti On the face of it, these two movies are basically about the same thing. It is about two men leading a caravan of families to the West, hopefully to safety and a better life. Except that in Red River, john Wayne's character turns tyrannical and sees everyone outside of their party as the enemy. Literally from the first few minutes it's established that the, the Native Americans who are already living on that land, are hostile killers. And then he eventually becomes terrifying. And the character of Montgomery Clift, who's like his mentee, is terrified of him and at different points has to consider whether he has to kill him Because it becomes so dangerous.

Adriana Herrera: 48:49

And Buck and the Pre? Um it like is completely different. It's with two leads who are, for all intents and purposes, morally gray characters. The story is completely different. It's set after the civil war and buck, who is a wagon master, is taking Black families from Louisiana to Kansas to safety, because Louisiana has become so dangerous for Black people, who are now free but are now being terrorized, killed by white raiders on the way west.

Adriana Herrera: 49:24

Instead of seeing the Native Americans as their enemies, buck and Preacher actually hook up with the Native Americans there and they get permission to hunt buffalo to be able to eat and they are able to go west. Right, they are able to make it west by, instead of becoming hostile against Native Americans, they ally themselves with them. They end up robbing a couple of banks in order to get money to get west. So they do a little crime as one does. They do a little crime as one does. They do do a little crime, but in the end the safety of the caravan is the most important thing, as opposed to john wayne's story, where he becomes the one that terrorizes the people he's supposed to get to safety. So, on the face of it, very similar stories, and yet the gaze of these stories and the value system of these stories and the protagonist of these stories are completely different.

Nikki Payne: 50:46

Okay, this? This leads us directly into character In Buckingham, Preacher and Red River. The same archetypes develop and flourish into completely different types of people. What happens when the Western characters are people of color?

Adriana Herrera: 51:03

Well, we kind of have to go into what are the archetypes of the Western of the western.

Nikki Payne: 51:13

Okay, the anthropologist in me wants to start with folklore. Think of paul bunyan and his axe and those picos bill types, the epic heroes of the west. These are the folks that built our legend paul bunyan with his axe and that bull babe supposedly carved out the grand canyon when picos bill rode a mountain lion with barbed wire reins. And there was that dude his name escapes me right now that tied up twisters in a knot. These heroes were larger than life but, most importantly, they had to conquer the land through force and power. These are the heroes of the West.

Adriana Herrera: 51:48

I mean, as an aside, the whole barbed wire thing is a little problematic, pecos Of course but also almost makes you think of this as like an American pantheon. Like does the American part of the American pantheon come from? The figures, these folklore figures of the West?

Nikki Payne: 52:10

Absolutely. First of all, yes, Pico's bill is canceled. Obviously you cannot do that, Not today, not in this economy. But then there are these more traditional heroes of the West right the settler, the outlaw, the cowboy, the stranger who walks into town to make trouble or to solve the trouble brewing.

Adriana Herrera: 52:31

And women also. The women of the west also have very particular archetypes. We have the homesteader, the lady you know that's standing there, her skirt flowing in the wind, looking at her man going, you know, to wrangle cattle, and you have the runaway. So just show up with like an alias and no hit, no backstory. And then you have your woman who are running the local brothel, the entertainment, so to speak.

Nikki Payne: 53:02

Did you just mention brothel? I think this is where the romance starts.

Adriana Herrera: 53:06

This might be where the romance starts. Yes, yes, you're correct.

Nikki Payne: 53:11

Yeah, this is where we edge you. We edge you on the romance. No, sorry.

Adriana Herrera: 53:17

This is where we edge the romance talk.

Nikki Payne: 53:24

But seriously, cowboy romance as a subgenre illustrates that different gaze makes a difference when it comes to themes, characterizations and how HEAs are envisioned.

Adriana Herrera: 53:38

Yeah, I mean, I think part of how we even came up with the theme of the Western, as our first season was from my going back to reread a bunch of 90 romances and I was reading you know Elizabeth Lowell has a series that I really loved back in the 90s and I revisited after a long time and I was reading at the same time I was reading beverly jenkins um westerns and I just noticed, like the very stark differences in how the storytelling happened and the characterization and the plot points and just how, despite them being thematically very similar and having archetypes that were very, very similar and overlapping, the storytelling was so different.

Nikki Payne: 54:30

So different. I mean, we can take one theme and pull it apart. Now, when we think about the law, right, we can think about characters like we mentioned walking into town, and they are there. Oftentimes, white characters are there to establish law or to reestablish order, and they have done their good deed by leaving a town that is now in a better position than they had, are, you know, ostensibly better position than they started. And that is how we know that that character in a white story, in a white romance, has done a good thing safe, the woman is now safe, and they've established this order and consistency and deliberate, um, like management of the environment. And that's how we know oh, this is a happily ever after, like now they're able to settle and they're able to, like, live on this land because of the bravery and and conventions of that hero so then, what happens when we get people that are outside the law established by white men?

Adriana Herrera: 55:32

and that is where beverly jenkins literally wrote the book. Literally wrote the book because she literally she has written about train robbers, fugitive, bounty hunters, buffalo soldiers, men navigating a west parallel to the one that most of us envision. When we think about the West, we think about a John Wayne, and Beverly Jenkins has literally a catalog of Westerns that are about men who are literally trying to operate and thrive and live in a system that they have to build for themselves, which, in a lot of ways, exists in the grays.

Nikki Payne: 56:17

The trickster figure.

Adriana Herrera: 56:19

Yeah, and it really comes from that idea of point of view. Right, it's that quote from Alviso Campos, who's a Puerto Rican liberator, says Cuando la tiranía es ley, la revolución Like. It's that quote from Alviso Campos, who's a Puerto Rican liberator, says Cuando la tiranía es ley, la revolución es orden, which I'm going to just regurgitate this in English, which I never usually do in my own books, but it's when tyranny is law, revolution is order. And so the point of view of someone writing the Western allows for much more dynamic and complex world building. Where you're kind of coming from the place of law and order isn't necessarily the answer for everyone and it doesn't necessarily encapsulate a happy, happy ever after for everyone.

Nikki Payne: 57:08

So the West is about power resistance renewal. How does that look when the character is black and brown?

Adriana Herrera: 57:15

Who owns this American story of reinvention? Beyonce, well, yeah, definitely her Um but um. But also we all do Um. Why does it matter who tells the story? Because the storyteller shapes the narrative. They decide which characters stand in the spotlight and which themes resonate through the ages. When Black people and people of color tell the story of the West, they're just not recounting tales of cowboys establishing rule of law or taming the land. When we tell our stories, we take the reins. We take shifts in the narrative from conquest and domination to one of collectivism, community and liberation from unjust laws.

Nikki Payne: 58:04

Beautiful. We hope you can join us biweekly on Unbound and join our conversation. Thanks for riding with us.

Adriana Herrera: 58:12

Your thoughts and stories are the lifeblood of this exploration, so we invite you to engage with us. Share your insights, your favorite moments and the romance narratives that have touched your life. Find us all on all major podcast platforms and follow us on TikTok, youtube and Instagram for updates and behind the scenes contents. We'll have reading lists, a listening list and a watching list for you to follow along as we go west. Next time, we are diving deep in the Beverly Jenkins oeuvre and how her stories, deeply steeped in history and heavily researched, are the perfect combination of the myth of the western and the actual history of the West. Where we're all really get into sex in the West with Beverly Jenkins. Until next time, keep your hearts unbound.