Highly Recommended: "What's an Indian Woman to Do?" in WHEN THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD WAS SUBDUED, OUR SONGS CAME THROUGH

What's an Indian Woman to Do?

Written by Marcie Rendon

Published in

When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through

Edited by Joy Harjo; Published in 2020

Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company

Review Status: Highly Recommended

Reviewer: Debbie Reese

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The first three lines in Rendon's poem, "What's an Indian Woman to Do?" are these:

what's an indian woman to do

when the white girls act more indian

than the indian women do?

From there we read about the Indian woman's ex-husband and what he expected her to do. The poem doesn't tell us this explicitly, but to me, that expectation is based on stereotypes he had acquired. We read about the Indian woman's mother and her work and how their life meant they didn't have time to make the sorts of things that white girls make and sell at powwows--and how they use what they think is a Native-sounding name and start using a reservation accent... And that bit about them correcting the Indian woman's use of Native language... What they are doing is claiming a Native identity.  

In the introduction to When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, Joy Harjo writes (p. 15): 

"Poems like Marcie Rendon's playful "What's an Indian Woman to Do?" both worry the edges of mixed identity and strongly claim Indigenous belonging."

Rendon's poem is about white women claiming to be Native, how they treat Native women, how they are embraced by others, and what that all feels like to a Native woman. If you follow Native people on social media, you likely know that we talk about sketchy claims to Native identity. From time to time, the national news will cover someone that has made a false claim to an identity. Most recently there were many articles about Jessica Krug a white woman who claimed to be Black. 

A few weeks before that, there were articles about "Sciencing_Bi"--a Native person created by a white woman named Beth Ann McLaughlin. That case was unusual. More often, we see a white person claiming to be Native in the ways that Jessica Krug was doing with her claim to being Black.

In Native communities, the word "pretendian" circulates as a term to describe someone who is making a fraudulent claim to being Native. Harjo addresses this issue in the Introduction to When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through (page 3):

Because we respect indigenous nations' right to determine who is a tribal member, we have included only indigenous-nations voices that are enrolled tribal members or are known and work directly within their respective communities. We understand that this decision may not be a popular one. We editors do not want to arbitrate identity, though in such a project we are confronted with the task. We felt we should leave this question to indigenous communities. 

When I launched American Indians in Children's Literature in 2006, I had already been studying children's literature about Native peoples for over a decade. In that capacity I, too, was confronted with the task of determining whether someone was Native or not. Generally, I take writers at their word when they claim to be Native. If an individual says they're enrolled or a citizen of a specific nation, I relax. I assume they are telling the truth. If they're not enrolled or a citizen, I take a closer look at their claim. Are they, as Harjo said, known in or working with their community? As you might know, all of this can get messy real quick! 

When someone's claim to an identity is questioned, some people (usually the person and their friends) quickly move to charge the questioner as "identity police." That label shifts the focus from the person making the claim to the person who is asking the question. The latter is criticized. In some cases, that has been me--Debbie, a Native woman. What, then, am I to do? To borrow Rendon's words, What's an Indian Woman to do?

Marcie Rendon's poem is about being a Native woman and seeing people who are not Native be embraced by society as if they are, in fact, Native. Can you see why Marcie Rendon's poem, What's an Indian Woman to Do?" might resonate with me? People trust what I write here on AICL and in my book chapters and articles. When a new book comes out and the author asserts a Native identity on the book jacket and in promotional materials, it is clear that their editor and publisher believe their claim. Have they vetted that claim? The care I take in studying and recommending (or not recommending) a book is important to a lot of people. I do the best I can do, given what I know about pretendianism, and the complexities of Native identity. Harjo continues:

And yet, indigenous communities are human communities, and ethics of identity are often compromised by civic and blood politics. The question "Who is Native?" has become more and more complex as culture lines and bloodlines have thinned and mixed in recent years. We also have had to contend with an onslaught of what we call "Pretendians," that is, nonindigenous people assuming a Native identity. When individuals assert themselves as Native when they are not culturally indigenous, and if they do not understand their tribal nation's history or participate in their tribal nation's society, who benefits? Not the people or communities of the identity being claimed.

One of the strengths of Harjo's work on this anthology is that teachers and librarians can learn from the many things she says in the introduction but there are other things to learn. Learn the names of the poets she's included. Learn the names of their tribal nations. For each poet she includes, Harjo provides information you need. Here's the entry for Rendon:

MARCIE RENDON (1952–), Anishinaabe, an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, is a poet, playwright, and community activist. Rendon’s work includes two novels, most recently Girl Gone Missing (2019), as well as four children’s nonfiction books. She received the Loft Literary Center’s 2017 Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship. She is a producer and creative director at the Raving Native Theater in Minnesota.

As I read that entry and think about what it says, I think I know what Marcie Rendon's answer to "What's an Indian Woman to Do?" has been. She counters the claims to Native identity by being an activist, a writer, producer, and creative director whose works and words can help you see who we are--for real. 

Get a copy of When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through and make room in your budget to get books by Native writers in Harjo's book.