Laura Ingalls Wilder's LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE
Yesterday's assigned reading for students in my class at UIUC was Little House on the Prairie. Most of the students read the book in childhood, and some remember it being read to them by a teacher or parent. Re-reading it now as adults, they were surprised at the multiple occurrences of what they described as derogatory and racist depictions of Native people that they do not recall.
One young woman remembers the phrase in the book "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" and another remembers feeling worried that Laura and her family were in danger.
Along with the book, the students read Michael Dorris' essay "Trusting the Words," in which he describes the joy with which he set out to read Little House to his daughters, only to be taken aback by the negative portrayals. He tried to edit them out as he read aloud, but eventually gave up. His essay first appeared in Booklist 89 (June, 1993) and was reprinted in his book of essays, Paper Trail, published in 1994 by HarperCollins.
I suggest you take a second look at Little House. Note the ways that Native peoples are described, and consider whether or not the book ought to be set aside and used, perhaps, in contexts where readers are able to think critically about racism and colonization.
If you are interested in books and articles that critique Little House, there are several, including these two by Native people.
"Burning Down the House: Laura Ingalls Wilder and American Colonialism," by Waziyatawin Angela Wilson, in Unlearning the Language of Conquest: Scholars Expose Anti-Indianism in America, edited by Four Arrows (Don Trent Jacobs), published in 2006 by University of Texas Press.
and
"Little House on the Osage Prairie," by Dennis McAuliffe, Jr., available on line at the Oyate web site.
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8 comments:
this is where it all starts.attitudes are shaped and molded from what we learn or dont learn.i dont see how we as a nation can complain about human rights violations when our country was founded on them.
Thank you for this post. I have thought about this many times since I had your Children's Literature class (GSLIS Fall 2001) and you described your daughter's reaction to being assigned to read Little House. I have brought it up in several different circles only to be lambasted by people with fond childhood memories of reading the series. Now I'm the librarian at a school where several teachers do read alouds from these books and we have multiple copies of the whole series. I am sure I couldn't get away with not having them -- and I have no particular way to have constructive discussions with each child who checks out the book. So I'm trying to round out my collection with better choices and perhaps I will refer teachers to your blog!
This is no defense of Little House or Laura Ingalls Wilder, but I would like to see some reference on your blog to the simple fact of when these books were written and the realities of pioneer life. Certainly the attitudes of "the colonizers" and their followers were abominable, but to place blame at the feet of these beloved books without acknowledgment of historical context is somewhat disingenuous.
Well, this book was written in the 1930s - your comment seems to indicate you think it was written at the time of the pioneers. By the '30s, the Indian Wars were long over, most of the Indians had been forced onto reservations, many of them were sent to boarding schools to be stripped of their language and culture. Most significantly, the area that was supposed to have been set aside as "Indian territory" such as the Kansas prairie where the Ingalls settled (and all of the present state of Oklahoma) had long before been opened up to white settlement and the Indians forced from the land. That time was not our time, but that time was also not the time that the books depict.
I'm reading this book to my 7 year old daughter now. I don't think it should be avoided or less loved because of her portrayal of "Indians". We talk together about the prejudices that are exposed by the writer. We've talked also about the perspective of the Osage -- that the Ingalls built their house and used resources without asking. I just wish it was easier to get some of the information on the situation at the time and what is correct/incorrect. That's why I'm researching online and came across this blog.
I respect your comments on this, but I would like to respectfully say that I have been able to edit these troubling sections out as I have read these books aloud. Most of the books in the series do not mention Native people at all. The most troubling is definitely "Little House on the Prairie", and "Little Town on the Prairie" has at least one negative comment. (More troubling in "Little Town on the Prairie" is the minstrel show that townspeople put on with blackface.) I also want to add that one of the Little House books reveals the "truth" about Santa Claus, and there are also references to corporal punishment of children. These are things that I have chosen to edit out of my read-aloud to my child.
On the whole, these books describe a family who lives and works together, relies upon the earth and each other, and shares much love and hardship. These are positive values that I appreciate sharing with my child. I have not found it to be "difficult" to my adult sensibilities or reading abilities to skip over a sentence, paragraph or even chapter here or there.
This seems a little bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I have read these wonderful books over and over again; as a child, and as an adult. I agree that the comments regarding indians and the minstrel show which uses the word "darkies" jumped out at me, but as I read and reread these stories, I was able to see that Laura was actually attempting to write about the predjudice of her mother without actually coming out and stating it. To out and out call her mother a "bigot" is something that Laura would never dream of. It is my belief, based on the undertones and actual statements following the predjudice statements, is that Laura wanted somehow to write in some real flaws in a family of what might otherwise be an unbelievably perfect family. Caroline Ingalls was predjudiced against indians, and Laura had no reason to leave that out. It is the truth, and nowhere in the books was I left with the impression that WE as readers were to agree with Caroline's views. In fact, all indian referennces in the books were written with the resultant good that came out of the interaction. Laura, as a good writer was very careful when writing about those incidences by simply telling the facts and opinions of the characters in the story as they happened. She did not, nor should she have, told her readers how to feel or think. That is left up to the reader. However, I note that Laura never wrote a negative comment without a positive contradiction.
Regarding the minstrel show, Laura wrote these books before the civil rights movement, and I remember when I was in grade school in the 70's, our school taught about minstrel shows as if they were no big deal. We've come a long way since then. I do think that perhaps the "darkies" word should be edited, or discussed with the student as the history surrounding minstrel shows.
I, too am reading LHotP to my young daughter and am troubled by some of what i read. I don't remember such harshness. But I also find it a fabulous spring board into discussions about how wrongly the Native Amercicans were treated. I stop and ask my daughter what she thinks, if she agrees. I am just at the part where Laura as a very little girl is questioning her Pa, in a day when little girls simply did not do such things, about what's going on with the Indians. Pa explains that they are being forced to leave so the white people can come, and Laura asks "But I thought this was Indian Territory" and Pa shushes her up, abruptly and tells her to go to sleep. I found this beautiful and brilliant. The wisdom of the young child questioning the all-powereful adult. Wilder tried to write through her eyes as what she saw and how things were from her perspective then, not when she was writing, but when the story took place. That's how things were, and its important that we remember how things were so we can learn the lessons. If we wash this down and clean it up it would no longer be historically accurate.
to simply assume people are reading these and thinking "Oh how wonderful it was back then" is simply wrong.
I really appreciate your blog and the insights it has given me. I was simply looking for a study guide.
Tell everyone to read this book, so they may see the mistakes we've made as a country. Its part of our history and should not be concealed.
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