NOT RECOMMENDED: Rebecca Roanhorse's RACE TO THE SUN. A review essay by Michael Thompson (Muscogee Creek)

With his permission, American Indians in Children's Literature is publishing Michael Thompson's essay about Rebecca Roanhorse's middle grade novel, Race to the Sun, published in 2020 by Disney Hyperion in the Rick Riordan Presents imprint. Thompson is a citizen of the Muscogee Creek Nation and taught high school in Farmington, New Mexico. He does not recommend Roanhorse's book. 

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NOT RECOMMENDED: Rebecca Roanhorse's Race to the Sun

What will Rebecca Roanhorse's Race to the Sun 

contribute to our understanding of the Native world it portrays?

Review essay by Michael Thompson (Muscogee Creek)

When Rebecca Roanhorse published her dystopian fantasy novel Trail of Lightning, I wrote at length about my grave concerns for her appropriation and distortions of Dine’ cultural narratives. I noted, as a Native educator and a Navajo in-law, that numerous Navajo writers were voicing similar objections, many of which are archived at Debbie Reese’s important website (AICL).

Now that Roanhorse has published a YA novel, Race to the Sun, my concerns remain unchanged, and arguably the stakes are even higher, as this book is likely to reach a much larger audience of younger readers, who are both Native and non-Native.

Although my primary conflict with RTTS is its failure to observe traditional boundaries that normally protect cultural narratives from appropriation, I will note briefly that there are some unusually problematic internal inconsistencies in the narrative and in some characterization.

For example, are we really to think that a young Navajo woman who has undergone her kinaalda is clueless at solving the riddle of what “four mountains bind you to your home”? Or that her father, a man who’d married a woman whose secret identity was supposedly a monsterslayer, would be seeking to work for a major oil and gas company that is being protested by Native people for its pipeline?

Moreover, there are some elements that are jarringly inconsistent with actual Navajo life and culture – the six stanza riddle that sets the quest seems straight out of European folklore, as does the plot structure that is clearly derived from classic stages of the hero’s journey, as well as the book and the sword that are among the monster slaying weapons provided by the Sun. And finally, I could barely believe that the climactic battle at Tse’Bit’Ai’ actually included Spider Woman dressed much like the Marvel superhero and casting a life-saving web. Clearly, the author feels free to mix and match whatever cultural/literary elements suit her fancy. This is opportunism on a grand scale.

Yet the greatest problem here is a simple one. Roanhorse must know that some traditional Navajo people consider her use of sacred figures and practices profoundly inappropriate. Those objections are well-documented.

She just doesn’t care.

Years ago I wrote an article for Tribal College Journal about the importance of the oral tradition in tribal college classrooms. I spoke with several Native scholars and instructors in researching that piece. One of the most significant personal conclusions I came to was this: as place-based, earth-based, community based cultures, tribal people honor the story of the group, its history and values and beauty, above the imagination of the solitary artist.

And I might add that the most important stories are often seen as belonging to the group, not to an individual to do with as he or she pleases. When I was first given a few traditional songs to learn to sing in ceremony, I was told this by my teachers: don’t add anything, don’t change anything, don’t take anything away.

That’s how it is possible to keep cultural knowledge intact for thousands of years.

For many traditional Native people, our origin stories, our ceremonial songs and teachings – passed down from our ancestors for centuries -- have a deeply sacred aspect, which in turn has made possible our cultural survival.

I am well aware that many people, maybe even a majority of Native people, consider the objections I am making inconsequential. So be it.

But there are at least some Native people I know who believe that we must always push back against anything that would diminish our origin stories, our worldviews. That means, among other things, protecting our stories as they were handed down to us.

As an educator, one of the most important questions I would ever ask about any work categorized as Native literature is this: what will it contribute to our understanding of the Native world it portrays?

When I consider Race to the Sun, I find almost nothing of real value to deepen one’s understanding of actual Navajo teachings but rather a mishmash of coming of age tropes from various non-Native cultures and from popular American culture, sprinkled with just enough familiar Navajo elements (hogans, Navajo tacos, geographic icons, and the like) to label it a Navajo story. No doubt there is a great deal of currency in mainstream readership for doing this. But there is little here to educate young Navajo or non-Navajo readers about the real meaning of the Dine’ narratives’ actual Holy People or the complex principles on which they are based.

The literature that Roanhorse makes uses a kind of cultural costumery and caricature. She takes characters and iconic landmarks from a rich, interconnected set of sacred Navajo stories, which have profound significance within that context, and she uses them as plastic action figures and dramatic settings to spin out whatever pop culture genre she likes, without any real regard for the actual gravity that traditional Navajo people would attach to them.

This is cultural reductionism, plain and simple.

Spider Woman, for the Dine’, does not belong in the Marvel universe, however many books that may sell. She belongs exactly where she has always been -- in the Dine’ universe – with beauty all around her.

A First Look at Roanhorse's RACE TO THE SUN

In July of 2019, I received an ARC (advanced reader copy) of Rebecca Roanhorse's Race to the Sun. I did a short twitter thread as I looked it over. Below is that thread, with some light editing to the original tweets, for clarity. I assume that Roanhorse and Riordan, too, read my thread and that edits to the ARC will be made before the final printing of Race to the Sun.  The book is due out in 2020.

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I have an ARC of Roanhorse's RACE TO THE SUN.

I was wrong to recommend her TRAIL OF LIGHTNING. Details: Concerns about Roanhorse's TRAIL OF LIGHTNING.

RACE TO THE SUN is in Rick Riordan's "Rick Riordan Presents" series. His use of his fame to launch writers of color is terrific. I haven't read the other book in Riordan's series.

His intro for RACE TO THE SUN is titled "The Original American Gods." That's a problem, for sure. His problematic intro looks like this:

THE ORIGINAL AMERICAN GODS
Changing Woman. Rock Crystal Boy. The Glittering World. The Hero Twins.

Do you see why that's not ok? "Original American" erases the fact that the Diné people pre-date America.

Indigenous peoples weren't "Original Americans."

They weren't "First Americans" either.

They were people of their own unique nations, all of which pre-date the United States. 

Moving from Riordan's intro to the book itself, I am pretty sure the Diné Writers Collective would say no to it, immediately. In their Open Letter, they state that Roanhorse appropriated Diné culture when she wrote TRAIL OF LIGHTNING. But they are also concerned with the content. They write that

Roanhorse often mischaracterizes and misrepresents Diné spiritual beliefs.

and,

Roanhorse turns deities into caricatures.

They reference others who have appropriated and misrepresented Diné beliefs, including Tony Hillerman, Oliver LaFarge, and Scott O'Dell. 

And they write that 

We are concerned that this book attempts to convert our true ancestral teachings into myth and legend.

Upthread, I linked to the Diné Writers Collective letter. I hope you go read the entire letter.

It is signed by Esther Belin, Sherwin Bitsui, Chee Brossy, Dr. Jennifer Denetdale, Tina Deschenie, Jacqueline Keeler, Dr. Lloyd Lee, Manny Loley, Jaclyn Roessel, Roanna Shebala, Jake Skeets, Dr. Laura Tohe, Luci Tapahonso, and Orlando White. 

In her Author's Note for RACE TO THE SUN, Roanhorse writes

I am just a writer of fantasy, not a culture keeper or scholar. This book should not be taken for a cultural text.

That is an icky, not-my-fault disclaimer because it echoes what Whiteness says (by "Whiteness" I mean white writers who argue that what they do in fiction doesn't have to be accurate because everybody knows that fiction isn't real. That is a disingenuous defense, no matter who says it.) 

In that note, she also thanks Riordan for allowing her to:

...share some of what I know of the beauty of the Navajo culture with Navajo readers and the rest of the world.

That kind of clashes with what she said, earlier (about the book not being a cultural text). First she says not to read the book as a cultural text, but then she says she's glad to share what she knows about Navajo culture.

How are readers going to know which parts are fantasy and which are not?

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I am currently reading Race to the Sun, making notes as I do. So far, I've met the main character. She is a Diné girl named Nizhoni who can see monsters. Because of that power, the monster she sees in the opening chapters tells her that it has to kill her.

But, a small stuffed horned toad on her shelf speaks to her, telling her she has to slay that monster. To do that she has to go to the Glittering World where she will meet the Sun, who is also known as The Merciless One, and who will give her the tools she needs to kill that monster. 

Clearly, Roanhorse is using Navajo stories to create the characters in Race to the Sun. As such, people in the Diné Writers Collective will see this as appropriation. Would the Diné Writers view these characters as caricatures?

When I finish reading and thinking about the book, I will be back with a link to the review.

Recommended! Rebecca Roanhorse's "Thoughts on Resistance" in HOW I RESIST: ACTIVISM AND HOPE FOR A NEW GENERATION

Editors note, Dec 31, 2018: Yesterday, I was updating the photo gallery of Native writers and went to Roanhorse's website to make sure I identify her as she identifies herself, but her bio no longer says she is Ohkay Owingeh. On Twitter today she said she's Indigenous. I'm not sure how to refer to her at this point. "Indigenous" without a specific tribal affiliation is not sufficient to be included on AICL. This has never happened to me before, so... not sure what to do! --Debbie


Yesterday, I wrote about the work of an Indigenous artist in We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices, an anthology edited by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson. Today, I'm back to talk about a different Indigenous artist, in another book with the theme of resistance.

I'm talking about Rebecca Roanhorse's "Thoughts on Resistance" in How I Resist: Activism and Hope for a New Generation, edited by Maureen Johnson. Here's the cover--and isn't it gorgeous?

Second from the right on the top line is Roanhorse. She is Ohkay Owingeh/Black. In her essay, she writes about being asked to participate in this project:

I felt a mistake had been made. I'm not an activist.

She goes on to say she's a writer off science fiction and fantasy. That's not activist work, she thought, but then, she remembers that she's an Indigenous woman, and...

Every day I am alive, I am resisting those who would reduce Native Americans to a footnote in a bad history book. 

There's several more "Every day I am alive..." passages and then,

Some of us have been resisting since 1492.

Awesome, right? She then refers to the Indigenous people who went to Standing Rock. She didn't go, but tells us that we can't all go to sites like that, and that some of us aren't "cut out to be frontline pipeline warriors." If, she writes "you're more like me, write." She suggests that Indigenous teens imagine worlds with Indigenous people in them--where they are not just surviving, but thriving. This, next part, for me, is precisely what I think this anthology is meant to do: inspire teens, to write!

... imagine Natives in space stations, Natives battling the Empire, Natives slaying dragons...

There's more, but I want you to get the book and read the rest of her essay, and the others in How I Resist, too! They're all different in length, style, and format (some, for example, are interviews). Published in 2018 by St. Martin's Press, I definitely recommend it!

Concerns about Roanhorse's TRAIL OF LIGHTNING

Editors note, Oct 1 2018: At the bottom of this post, I will add links to articles/videos where Native writers or scholars discuss Roanhorse and/or the concerns I raised below. Today, for example, I will add links to videos from the Institute of American Indian Art. One is titled "Cultural Stakes," it is dated Fall 2018. The other is by a student, Rose Simpson. In her lecture she talks about this issue specifically as it relates to her and people she knows. She is a Pueblo woman. Her talk is shorter than Cultural Stakes. I recommend you start with hers. AICL's post on this issue is dated August 9. Her talk was uploaded to the vimeo site on June 6, 2018. --Debbie

Editor's note, Oct 10, 2019: Sometime in 2018, Roanhorse removed Ohkay Owingeh from her website. She was adopted. Through an investigator she found her birth mother, who told her that she was from Ohkay Owingeh. I do not know why Roanhorse removed that information. On October 5, 2019, Adrian Jawort published a defense of Roanhorse. I disagree with Jawort's conclusions but am including a link to it below with the others. --Debbie

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I want Native children to have books that respect who they are, as Native children. I want Native writers to experience success in the publishing world, because that translates to opportunities for more Native writers. And I want Native writers to be successful in every genre--including science fiction and fantasy!

But, there are things that don't belong in books. Let me explain.

I was raised with a deep respect for our ceremonies and our religious ways of being. Wrapped up in that respect is a commitment to protect that knowledge. I can easily see and hear elders telling us, as children, “don’t tell your teacher or your friends ...” Their instructions are based on hundreds of years of experience with exploitation and misrepresentation that were--are--harmful to us as individuals, as people of a community, and as a tribal nation.

Our elders, in essence, drew a curtain. A curtain between what can be disclosed, and what cannot be disclosed. It protects us. That instruction is a guiding principal that I bring to my study of children's and young adult literature. I lost sight of it, recently, and am addressing that failure with this blog post. And I am apologizing to friends and colleagues who are Navajo. 

Whenever I pick up a book, the first thing I do is look at the author. If the author is Native, I relax because I assume that the author is knowledgeable about their nation and that they will only disclose what can be disclosed. If the author is not Native or not of the nation the book is about, I look to see if there’s an indication that the book was looked at by someone with the expertise necessary to spot factual errors--and problems of disclosure, too.

Back in February of 2018, I read and reviewed Legends of the Lost Causes by Brad McLelland and Louis Sylvester (they are not Native writers). I questioned their use of religious aspects of Osage and Abenaki people. So, I did not recommend the book. I noted that the book was blurbed by someone from the Osage Nation but that I had concerns and questions, nonetheless. Then in May, 2018, Elizabeth Bird at School Library Journal, published Sensitivity Readers, Cultural Considerations, and Legends of the Lost Causes. In it, she posed some of my questions to Jessilyn Hudgins of the Osage Nation's Cultural Center. Hudgins replied that McLelland was willing to change or take out anything that she wasn't comfortable with. Because Hudgins is of that nation, her feedback is important. It gives the authors and the publisher a green light to continue with the Osage content in the other books in that series. 

I still have questions, though, because I know that Indigenous people fall on a continuum of what is or is not ok to share. Where any one of us falls is based on the teachings we were given, and where we were raised. Many of us do not grow up on our reservations, and even if we do, some of us make different choices about how we will speak (or not) about our religious ways. In other words, within our nations, we don't all come out at the same place with respect to what we think can be shared. In that continuum, I'm over on the end that says 'do not talk about this at all.' 

I started talking with Rebecca Roanhorse on Twitter about three years ago. In those conversations and on her website, I learned that she is Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo) and Black, and married to a Navajo man. (Update on July 19, 2019: Roanhorse no longer lists Ohkay Owingeh on her profile.) I also learned that she is a writer, working primarily in science fiction and fantasy. 

Somewhere along there I learned that she was working on a book with a Navajo protagonist. I learned the book was meant for the adult market, but because of the age of the protagonist, I wanted to see it. Tim Tingle's House of Purple Cedar wasn't marketed for teens. Neither was Louise Erdrich's The Round House or Marcie Rendon's Murder on the Red River. But--I'd hand those books to an older teen in an instant. So, I wanted to see Roanhorse's Trail of Lightning. I also learned that Navajo people were working with her on the Navajo content. Because of that, I assumed that she did not have anything in the book that should not be disclosed. When I got the book, I liked what I read and said so, on Facebook and on Twitter. When invited to do so, I wrote a review of it for Barnes and Noble's website.

For that review, I began with the work of Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop. I find her metaphor -- that books can be windows, mirrors, or sliding glass doors -- tremendously useful. White children have many mirrors. Native children have very few, and some of them are cracked and more like those fun house mirrors at carnivals. This graphic (credit for the infographic is to Dr. Sarah Park Dahlen, Molly Beth Griffin, and David Hyuck) makes the point quite well:

See how many mirrors the White child has? Over seventy percent of the books received at CCBC in 2015 featured White characters, and only .9% featured Native characters. Even worse--the books included in that .9% are ones with stereotypes and otherwise bad representations! So--not only is the mirror the Native child holds small, it is one that distorts who Native people are.

In recent writings, I've begun adding a curtain to Dr. Bishop's metaphor. It is similar to the line of disclosure. For some things, we draw a curtain on our windows. There are things we do not share and do not wish to share. (See, for example, an excerpt of an article I wrote for Language Arts in 2018).

As I read Trail of Lightning, I recognized the places Roanhorse was writing about. The way she wrote about the setting struck me as a mirror. A splendid one, in fact. That's what I titled my article at Barnes and Noble: "A Splendid Mirror for Indigenous Readers." I was wrong. 

Roanhorse's book is published by Saga Press--an imprint of Simon & Schuster--which is significant. Simon & Schuster is one of the "Big Five" publishers in the United States. Most Native writers are published by smaller publishing houses. Getting published by one of the Big Five means way more visibility than is otherwise possible. 

So, I was happy on several counts. It looked like what I--as a Native woman and scholar--want to see! As evident on Twitter (update on July 19, 2019: Charlie Scott's supported it on Twitter and in October of 2018, wrote an article about it), there are Navajo readers who are taken with it, too. In some ways, the representations Roanhorse offers to readers of this genre are terrific. In most books set in the future, Indigenous people are completely missing. Roanhorse centers this story in Native spaces and features Native people. 

But, I started to hear directly from Navajo friends and colleagues. They are not at all happy with Trail of Lightning. From what I understand, Roanhorse crossed their lines of disclosure. If she had done this book using Pueblo religion, they said, she'd be called out for doing that. They're right. In fact, I'd be one of the people saying no to that book. And I'm grateful to them for, in essence, calling me out about my recommendation of Trail of Lightning.

This situation is uncomfortable for them, for me, and I am sure it will be uncomfortable for Roanhorse, too, when she reads this post. From her interviews online, she said that she knows that there are things within Ohkay Owingeh that she would not share. This is a concept she understands. It'd be easier to just ignore this whole thing and keep disagreements amongst Native scholars, critics, and readers behind that curtain, too, but that kind of silence does not help writers, editors, and readers grow in their understanding of who Indigenous people are and how some of us feel about the ways our stories are used--even if the person using our ways is Native.

There are many conversations taking place within Navajo circles. Some may write a letter (or letters) about Trail of Lightning. When those letters appear, I will add links to them (update on July 19, 2019: see the links at the bottom of this post). In the meantime, I invite you to submit comments or write to me directly with your thoughts or questions about what I've written above.

A quick note on some of the conversations I've had, that I'll summarize here as a Q&A. If they don't make sense, let me know.

Question 1: "What about other writers who have done this, like Tony Hillerman? Are people upset with him, too? And will they talk about his books?"

My answer: Yes, I've talked with Navajo people before about Hillerman's books, and yes, they object to what he did, but I don't know if there are plans to talk about his books within the context of Trail of Lightning. 

Question 2: "Are some of these people jealous of Roanhorse's success?"

My answer: That's possible, but the concerns are from a wide range of Navajo people, and I think that attributing the objections to jealousy rather than as serious concerns about the content is not fair. 

Question 3: "Are people being racist because she's Black?"

My answer: That's possible, but attributing objections to racism is also asking us to ignore the serious concerns about the content. 

Question 4: "What about the Navajo people who are really liking the book? Are they wrong for liking it?"

My answer: No, I don't think they're wrong for liking it. They may not know that traditionalists within the Navajo Nation do not think this content should be shared. They may change their minds later--or they may reject the idea of keeping some kinds of information private. 

Question 5: "What exactly is the problematic content?"

My answer: I would not point out the specific problematic content if the book had violated Pueblo lines of disclosure, because doing that would do precisely what the author has done. I do not know how Navajo people will describe their concerns with it. When I see them, I will link to them. 

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Links to sites (arranged by date) where Native writers and scholars discuss or write about this issue. Also includes links to videos or articles where the topic was discussed by Roanhorse.


June 6, 2018. Video. Institute of American Indian Art, Low Rez MFA. Rose Simpson Craft Lecture. (Link added here on Oct 1, 2018.)

June 25, 2018. Video. Institute of American Indian Art, Low Rez MFA. Panel discussion, Fall 2018: Cultural Stakes with panelists Santee Frazier, Toni Jensen, James Thomas Stevens, and Kimberly Blaeser. (Link added here on Oct 1, 2018.)

July 1, 2018. Video. Q&A at the Jean-Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, NM, on June 26th, 2018. Rebecca Roanhorse Reads from Trail of Lightning and Takes Audience Questions. (Link added here on Oct 1, 2018.)

November 6, 2018. Trail of Lightning is an appropriation of Diné cultural beliefs, by the Saad Bee Hózhǫ́ (Diné Writers' Collective), published at Indian Country Today on Nov 4, 2018.

November 15, 2018. Does the letter from the Diné Writers Collective Mark a Turning Point? by Debbie Reese at AICL.

November 23, 2018. Guest column: New novel twists Diné teachings, spirituality by Jennifer Rose Denetdale, published in Navajo Times on November 22, 2018.

April 30, 2019: Muscogee writer, Michael Thompson, on interactions with bookseller when he shared concerns about Trail of Lightning

October 10, 2019: The Dangers of the Appropriation Critique by Adrian Jawort, in The Los Angeles Review of Books. (As noted in the editor's note at the top of this post, I disagree with Jawort.)

June 24, 2020: The Elizabeth Warren of the SciFi Set: Author Faces Criticisms for Use of Tribal Traditions, article by Acee Agoyo in Indianz.

The Exquisite Book Cover for Rebecca Roanhorse's TRAIL OF LIGHTNING

Editors note, Oct 1, 2018: Please see Concerns about Roanhorse's Trail of Lightning, dated August 9, 2018.

Books by Native writers have given me moments where a phrase so perfectly reflects my experience, that I exclaim aloud, with joy, 'YES!' Illustrations can do that, too, and once in a great while, a book cover will have that effect.

Last week, Barnes and Noble did the cover reveal for Rebecca Roanhorse's Trail of Lightning. Rebecca is Ohkay Owingeh (the tribal nation my mom is from) and African American. When I saw the cover, my heart swelled. I wanted everyone in my Native networks to see it! The art is by Tommy Arnold.

So, I shared it widely and others did, too. It had the same kind of impact on Native people. Tiffany Midge, for example, said she wanted to make it into a poster. Tiffany is Hunkpapa Lakota. She's a writer, too. Look for her in #NotYourPrincess. Pernell Thomas is Navajo. On Twitter, he said:

This! This! This! Seeing a powerful Diné woman on the cover of a book like this is so inspirational and life changing. I can't help but think how many young Diné children will be empowered by this imagery. The ké ntsaaí!!! ahxé'héé

Trail of Lightning isn't a book for kids but I have no doubt that they'll see teens and parents reading it. And feel empowered. Some of you may be wondering why we're having this reaction. We all probably see the power that the lightning imparts, but some of us saw Maggie's mocs. Some of us saw the truck we (or someone in our family) drives on the reservation. But there are things that are not there that make the cover powerful in other ways.

Book covers that have Native women on them are usually books that are set in the past. They're written by people who aren't Native and profess to love Native people, but that ultimately don't understand the distinctions that exist amongst the hundreds of Native Nations in the U.S. and Canada. The default illustration of a Native woman, then, includes feathers, braids, fringed clothing, and a tipi, horse, and maybe a buffalo. All of that is possible for one nation--but certainly not for all of us.

In other words, Maggie is so empowering to us because she's real. She is not a stereotype. The cover is exquisite because it speaks to us as people of the present day, and as readers who want to see our selves reflected on book covers. In 2019, Native children will be able to buy Rebecca's Race to the Sun. It will be published in the Rick Riordan Presents series. Its main character is a seventh grade Navajo girl named Nizhoni Begay.

Trail of Lightning will be available on June 26, 2018. Pre-order it! It is being published by Saga Press, which is an imprint of Simon and Schuster. In the meantime, read the Q&A at Barnes and Noble, and follow Rebecca on Twitter.

The phrase, "I can't wait" is a cliché that many of us on Native social media are uttering. It doesn't do justice, though, to the emotion this cover generates. I'll close with the word 'yes' -- in Tewa (my language). That feels right.

Hąą!