Becoming a Good Relative

"Hilary Giovale unpacks the legacies of historical harm that continue to afflict American society and shows us a way forward toward healing. This book is for people who want to be better and do better for the sake of generations to come."

—Sharon Leslie Morgan, Founder, Our Black Ancestry and Co-Author, Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade

"Told with utter honesty, humility, and profound respect, Becoming a Good Relative should be required reading for anyone embarking on a journey toward healing and right relationship. This book humanizes brutal historical legacies, resulting in a journey that’s been blessed by many relatives and alchemized by love."

—Nina Simons, Author of Nature, Culture & the Sacred, and Co-Founder, Bioneers 

"Giovale offers her own story as a pathway for settlers to reach into their own stories for the tools they need to become whole. This book is a beautiful invitation to transform settler histories and live alongside Indigenous peoples."

—Patty Krawec, Ojibwe Anishinaabe/Ukrainian Author of Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future

"Hilary Giovale models courageous exploration of truth telling, healing, and repair. This book is a must read for anyone grappling with their own relationship with cultural identity, race, and colonization."

—Kevin Eppler, Co-Founder, White Men for Racial Justice

"In a world built on and still profiting from slavery, genocide, as well as other forms of incomprehensible settler violence, Hilary offers the most sane advice - to lean into that which gives life: community, our planet, and the ways of being interconnected."

—Dr. David Ragland, Co-Founder and Co-ED, The Truth Telling Project; Director, Grassroots Reparations Campaign; Lecturer on Reparations as Spiritual Practice, Harvard Divinity School

“A call for all people to come together and honor each other as humans. The author bravely examines her positionality within the cultural and racial divides created to maintain the White supremacy that hurts us all.” 

—Alexis Bunten, Multi Award-winning Author of What Your Ribbon Skirt Means to Me

“The heartfelt stories, raw vulnerability, and hard truths contained in these pages move the reader to a breaking point, where instead of being knocked down they find themselves breaking open and moving toward a more balanced possibility of relationship with the entire living world.”

—Sherri Mitchell (Weh’na Ha’mu’ Kwasset), Author of Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change

“Rather than seeking to become anti-racist in thought, Giovale has done the hard, deeper, alchemic work of what truly lies ahead of us - an undoing of spiritual and mental conditioning that will lead to true liberation.”

—Brittíni Gray-Chiquillo, Founder and ED, Mama Scrap’s Incorporated