"Native Literary Nationalism and Reinventing the Enemy's Language: Simon Ortiz's Books for Youth"

Eds. Note: Today, friend and colleague Tom Crisp, assistant professor at the University of South Florida, will read a paper I wrote for the 36th Annual Children's Literature Association Conference. I opted to stay on-task with my book manuscript rather than attend the conference. I miss it, though, as I imagine the goings-on there yesterday, today, and tomorrow. My paper is one of four papers in the panel on Linguistic Diversity in Children's and Young Adult Literature. Last year was the first time I attended the conference. It was terrific to meet so many people with whom I've corresponded over the last ten years. My paper title is "Native Literary Nationalism and Reinventing the Enemy's Language: Simon Ortiz's Books for Youth." I'm sharing the paper here, today, on AICL. If you're at ChLA and want to respond to it, I hope you do so there, in the room where the panel is speaking, but I hope you'll also comment here, or, write to me directly.

____________________________________________

I am sorry not to be with you today, to deliver this paper myself. I thank Dr. Tom Crisp for agreeing to read it for me. The paper is in first person, so remember that these are my words, not Tom’s. I preface my paper with some reflection and observation. The goal of this paper is to bring a Native perspective to ChLA. I will do that in two ways. First, I will briefly turn my lens on the association itself, and then, I will introduce you to an Acoma writer and poet named Simon Ortiz. First, my perspective on ChLA.

The theme of this year’s conference is “The Best of Three.” The program reads:

In the world of children's literature, the number three has special connotations. The third pig has the best house, the third wish is the best wish, and the third bear always has the best stuff. Thus, the theme for the 2009 conference is "The Best of Three."

Those words prompted some questions for me. In what world of children’s literature is three an important number? Is it an important number in what Nancy Larrick called the “all white world of children’s literature”? Three is not the number with special connotations in Native Nations. Our special number is four. Note, too, “best house” and “best wish” and “best stuff” in the program. Best for... whom? Why does best matter? It sounds like the American Dream. It makes me think of Perry Nodelman’s writings about assumptions. What assumptions does the theme reflect?

Native people are not new to ChLA. A Narragansett woman was at the very first conference in 1974, but she wasn’t there to give a paper. She was the entertainment at the banquet. That is, she was a storyteller. Her name was Princess Redwing. Given that notions of royalty were placed onto Native societies by Europeans, the word “princess” always gives me pause. From a 1997 article in the Providence Journal, I learned that Princess Red Wing was named Mary Congdon. She died in 1987 at the age of 92. The newspaper article says, “she was taught that her family descended from the Narragansett and Wampanoag tribes” (see notes 1 and 2, below). I am troubled by phrases she used and stories she told. From my perspective, they play to an audience that reveres the image of the romantic Indian. As a Native woman and scholar studying literatures and representation at this moment in time, I am, perhaps too often, critical of activities by Native peoples whose work affirmed—and affirms—negative or positive stereotypes that I view as harmful to our well-being as Native peoples in the present day. I want different stories, ones that make the reader uncomfortable, ones that replace the savage or romantic Indian with Native peoples of the past and present who were and are intellectuals and diplomats. Instead, it seems to me that a lot of people choose to tell what the field of children’s literature calls myths and folktales. Some turn to archived stories as their sources. There is a wealth of material for them to look into, but a lot of it was gathered in the 1800s and early 1900s by individuals who interpreted the material from an outsider’s perspective. In some instances, I think it is fair to say that their informants were tricksters. Case in point: Elsie Clews Parsons was a Smithsonian anthropologist working amongst the Pueblo Indians in the 1920s. In the preface to her monograph, she wrote:

Information from San Ildefonso was least satisfactory. The women were particularly timid and not well informed; the man was a threefold liar, lying from secretiveness, from his sense of burlesque, and from sheer laziness. (p. 7)

Though she does not say, I assume Parsons did not use information provided by the man from San Ildefonso, but I wonder how she knows that the information from her other informants was ok? My point is that these archived stories may not be a reliable resource. Anyone that wants to use these archives must do so with a critical lens, developed by reading journals used in American Indian studies and books published by presses specializing in Native Studies.

But, back to Princess Red Wing. I purposefully said that she was the entertainment at the banquet. I have been asked many times to come tell stories at this or that gathering. I reply that I am not a storyteller who tells Native stories, but I would be happy to give a talk about Pueblo Indians and our history. At that point, the invitation is withdrawn. Americans want performing Indians who can entertain them with myths and legends. Stories are one way, in fact, that people educate others. A lot of what is marketed as American Indian stories may be well written from an aesthetic viewpoint, but all my selves—the mother, the schoolteacher, the professor—want more than well-written stories. I want stories that accurately convey who American Indians were, and are—emphasis on the word are—in all our humanity.

As a society, America knows very little about American Indians and the things that we care about. So, you might wonder, what do I think is the most important thing about American Indians that children should learn? That we are sovereign nations; that we are political entities, not ethnic or racial ones. With the rise of multicultural education and the call for multicultural literature, American Indians were categorized as one of America’s ‘underrepresented minorities.’ And in fact, as a group, we are underrepresented, and due to our small population, we are a minority. As such, that categorization is accurate, but it obscures a great deal.

What it obscures is what I want Americans to learn. We have our own governments, constitutions, justice systems, police, and lands over which we have jurisdiction. Our tribal leaders enter into state-to-state agreements with other nations around the world. Our leaders do that today, just like they did in the 1600s and 1700s and 1800s and 1900s. Our status as nations brings me to Simon Ortiz.

In 1981, Simon Ortiz wrote an essay that Native scholars mark as a foundational text. Published in MELUS, it is called “Towards a National Indian Literature: Cultural Authenticity in Nationalism.” Ortiz is from Acoma, one of the 19 Pueblos in New Mexico. By 1981, he had written several acclaimed stories, books, and poems. The year prior to the publication of his MELUS essay, he had read at the “White House Salute to Poetry and American Poets.” He begins the MELUS essay by talking about celebrations and names at Acoma: Fiesta. Juana. Pedro. Anticipating his reader’s questions as to why Acoma Indians have a fiesta and why they use Spanish words and names, he offers this explanation:

[T]his celebration speaks of the creative ability of Indian people to gather in many forms of the socio-political colonizing force which beset them and to make these forms meaningful in their own terms. In fact, it is a celebration of the human spirit and the Indian struggle for liberation.

The socio-political colonizing force he is talking about is the arrival of the Europeans, and the celebration is a creative response to colonization that took place across the US and Canada:

[I]n every case where European culture was cast upon Indian people of this nation there was similar creative response and development… [T]his [creative ability] was the primary element of a nationalistic impulse to make use of foreign ritual, ideas, and material in their own—Indian—terms. Today’s writing by Indian authors is a continuation of that elemental impulse.

Without these creative responses, Ortiz writes, those hard experiences “would be driven into the dark recesses of the indigenous mind and psyche.” This, he says, is poison, and a detriment to growth. Through prayer, song, and story, Native peoples make meaning and meaningfulness, as we work towards maintaining our Nationhood and identity as sovereign Native Nations. And that, he says, is what literature is about. In Reinventing the Enemy’s Language (1997), acclaimed Mvskoke Creek author, poet, and musician Joy Harjo (author of The Good Luck Cat) says:

When our lands were colonized the language of the colonizer was forced on us. It was when we began to create with this new language that we named it ours, made it usefully tough and beautiful. (p. 23-24)

Native writers, Ortiz says, acknowledge:

…a responsibility to advocate for their people’s self-government, sovereignty, and control of land and resources; and to look also at racism, political and economic oppression, sexism, supremacism, and the needless and wasteful exploitation of land and people, especially in the U.S.

In his picture books for children, Ortiz takes that new language and uses it and his own Native tongue to advocate for community, and, to look at racism and oppression. Throughout, he emphasizes the well-being of community, and the connection to land and culture.

His first book, The People Shall Continue was published in 1977 by Children’s Book Press. As you know, the sixties and seventies were marked by social unrest. While everyone knows about the work of African Americans in the Civil Rights Movement, few know that Native peoples were very active, too. They occupied Alcatraz Island, Wounded Knee, and, federal buildings in Washington DC. This activism was designed to draw attention to treaty violations and treatment of American Indians. At that time, Simon Ortiz was living in the Bay Area. Harriet Rohmer, founding publisher of Children’s Book Press was there, too, helping out at the Native American Survival School. She wanted to do a book of interviews of Native teens talking about their lives and their thoughts about the future. This, she thought, would go a long way to countering the perception that Indians had vanished. She talked with school leaders about her book idea, but they expressed concern for the students, saying the raw qualities of their stories, in print form, might hurt them. Bill Wahpepah suggested she get a “university Indian” [3] to do the book, and to that end, he helped her get in touch with Simon Ortiz.

When Rohmer met with Ortiz, he talked at length about survival, and then he began work on the manuscript that would become The People Shall Continue. Given its content, the book was and is hailed as an honest history of colonization in North America. Doris Seale, an Abenaki/Santee Dakota-Cree librarian said “If you give only one book about Native peoples to your young children, let this be the one.”[4] Ortiz begins the first page in this way:

Many, many years ago, all things came to be.

The stars, rocks, plants, rivers, animals.

Mountains, sun, moon, birds, all things.

And the People were born.

Some say, “From the ocean.”

Some say, “From a hollow log.”

Some say, “From an opening in the ground.”

Some say, “From the mountains.”

And the People came to live

in the Northern Mountains and on the Plains,

in the Western Hills and on the Seacoasts,

in the Southern Deserts and in the Canyons,

in the Eastern Woodlands and on the Piedmonts. (2)

Eloquently, Ortiz tells us that there is more than one creation story. He acknowledges the presence of indigenous Peoples throughout the hemisphere, in all directions, each with their respective origins, histories, and beliefs. He privileges no one and no place. He goes on to tell us that the Peoples knew each other and had much to learn and share with each other. Without romanticizing Native peoples and our history, he continues, quietly and gently, preparing the reader for the changes to come. He writes:

[O]ne day, something unusual began to happen.

Maybe there was a small change in the wind.

Maybe there was a shift in the stars.

Maybe it was a dream that someone dreamed.

Maybe it was the strange behavior of an animal. (7)

He continues, telling us about strange men who arrived, seeking treasures and slaves and land, men causing destruction. Ortiz tells us the People fought back:

In the West, Popé called warriors from the Pueblo and Apache Nations.

In the East, Tecumseh gathered the Shawnee and the Nations of the Great Lakes,

the Appalachians, and the Ohio Valley to fight for their People.

In the Midwest, Black Hawk fought to save the Sauk (sock) and Fox Nation.

In the Great Plains, Crazy Horse led the Sioux in the struggle to keep their land.

Osceola in the Southeast, Geronimo in the Southwest, Chief Joseph in the Northwest, Sitting Bull, Captain Jack, all were warriors. (12)

How does anyone, at this point, tell children what happened next? Instead of a feel-good narrative of people living in harmony, Ortiz tells his readers the truth. Many adults feel such truths are beyond the understanding of a young child, but in Native communities, our children know these histories. Ortiz knows this, and he does not pull back from the hardships of those years as the People sought to protect their sovereignty. Ortiz writes:

From the 1500s to the late years of the 1800s,

The People fought for their lives and lands.

In battle after battle, they fought until they grew weak.

Their food supplies were gone, and their warriors were killed or imprisoned.(13)

From there, Ortiz goes on to talk of treaties. Reservations. Promises broken. Government agents. Boarding schools. Relocation. Poverty. But, he does not use the word “plight” nor does he draw on “tragic Indian” tropes. Instead, he tells his readers that parents told their children:

“You are Shawnee. You are Lakota.

You are Pima. You are Acoma.

You are Tlingit. You are Mohawk.

You are all these Nations of the People.”

And, he says, the People told each other stories:,

These are the stories and these are the songs.

This is our heritage.

And the children listened. (18)

Note the last line: “And the children listened.” A simple, yet powerful statement that conveys his confidence in children and the purpose that storytelling serves in a Native community.

Survival and well being depend on caring for each other. That caring ethic is seen in Ortiz’s second children’s book Blue and Red, published in 1981 by the Pueblo of Acoma Press. The title of the book refers to two horses who are brothers. In the story, Red challenges his older brother, Blue, to a race. With longer legs, Blue could easily get to the top of the mesa before Red, but, instead, he makes decisions that allow them to safely reach the top of the mesa together. Blue is living what he has been taught, which is responsibility to others and by extension, to the well-being of the community. It is that responsibility to community that is at the heart of our survival.

Ortiz had one other book published by the Pueblo of Acoma Press: The Importance of Childhood, published in 1982. The book is about games Ortiz played as a child. In it, he talks about a game most of you recall playing. “Red Rover.” But it isn’t just “Red Rover Red Rover, let Evelina come over” that is in the book. That “Red Rover” phrase is followed by “Ne baitsashru!” which in the Acoma language means “Run!” In Ortiz’s account of playing this and other childhood games, the children at AcomaPueblo people remade something from the outside into something of our own, something that reflects who we are as Pueblo people. use English and Keres. It illustrates how

His fourth book is The Good Rainbow Road, published by the University of Arizona Press in 2004. It is a trilingual book, published in English, Spanish, and Keres. The Spanish translation was done by Mayan writer, poet, and anthropologist Victor Montejo. In the Author’s Note, Ortiz says: “I was happy Professor Montejo could do it because I wanted a translation into Spanish by a Native-language speaker who knew at first-hand pertinent matters that have bearing on Spanish language use by Native people in the Americas” (n.p.). Though he does not elaborate on those first-hand matters, it is likely that Ortiz is referring to the complex history and relationships between the Pueblo peoples of the southwest and the Spanish who were the first Europeans to come into our midst. Brutal treatment by the Spanish led to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 by which the Pueblo people successfully drove the Spanish out of Pueblo homelands. Upon their return, delicate negotiations took place as, over the ensuing centuries, Pueblo people adapted, rejected, and reworked Spanish influences on PuebloThe Good Rainbow Road is the story of two boys, “First One” and “Next One” whose people have forgotten about the spirits of rain and snow, the Shiwana, and hence, they are in a drought. The boys are charged with going to the Shiwana for help. Their journey is long and difficult. At one point, Next One is unable to leap over a canyon of hot lava. He sits down, crying. An old blind woman comes down the path. Forgetting his fear, he leaps up to prevent her from falling into the canyon. She thanks him and gives him a stone that, when tied to his arrow and then shot from his bow, creates a rainbow across the canyon. She tells him to climb it and continue his journey. Next One looks back, remembering from where they came and thinks of their people, and he looks to the east where the Shiwana live. Then he continues the journey on the rainbow road across the canyon. society, thereby making external forces meaningful to us on our own terms.

Though The Good Rainbow Road is not a traditional story, it has elements of traditional Native stories. These elements include beliefs in the power of language and of memory. Both are central to the existence of the human race, and both are at the core of stories all peoples tell. It is memory of what once was (a time of plenty), and what has been forgotten (to ask the Shiwana for help) that serves as the impetus for the journey of First One and Next One. It is memory of their people that helps Next One climb onto the rainbow road. It is the power of language (a belief in the words the old woman says) that creates the road that will lead to the survival of the people.

Reflecting on his body of work, Ortiz says he has a mantra: land, culture, community. As Pueblo people, we are blessed in that our traditional ways are still strong and intact. Is it because we are so rooted in land, culture, and community? While his poetry, short stories and essays are important in their own right, his writing for children demonstrates the reason we continue. It is the importance of children. Whether it is his poems about his own children, or, his stories about his own childhood, he writes about the importance of childhood.

In The People Shall Continue, the children listen. In Blue and Red, children learn to help other children, and in The Importance of Childhood, children’s play incorporates the colonizer’s language. In The Good Rainbow Road, the survival of our communities is in the hands of children. Because of story, and because of children, the People Shall Continue.

References

Harjo, Joy. Reinventing the Enemies Language. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.

Larrick, Nancy. “The All-White World of Children’s Books.” Saturday Review September 1965: 63-85.

Ortiz, Simon. Blue and Red. Acoma: Pueblo of Acoma Press, 1981.

---. The Good Rainbow Road: Rawa ‘Kashtyaa’tsi Hiyaani. Tucson: University of Arizona Press,

2004.

---. The Importance of Childhood. Acoma: Pueblo of Acoma Press, 1982.

---. The People Shall Continue. Emeryville: Children’s Book Press, 1977.

---. Personal Interview. May. 2008.

---. “Towards a National Indian Literature: Cultural Authenticity in Nationalism,” in American Indian Literary Nationalism, edited by J. Weaver, C. S. Womack, and R. Warrior. Albuquerque: UNM Press. 2006.

Parsons, Elsie Clews. The Social Organization of the Tewa of New Mexico. The American Anthropological Association, 1929.

---

[1] See the website for more information: http://www.projo.com/specials/women/97story4.htm#redwing

[2] John Cech, Princess Red Wing: Keeper of the Past, Children's Literature - Volume 10, 1982, pp. 83-101

[3] By this time, Ortiz had been a student at the University of New Mexico and the University of Iowa. With several successful publications, he was adept at using the printed word to share Native experiences and perspectives. As such, he was well-positioned to take on the project.

[4] Her review of the book is in Through Indian Eyes: The Native Experience in Books for Children, edited by Beverly Slapin and Doris Seale, first published in 1987. Through Indian Eyes is widely regarded as a touchstone volume in the field of children’s literature. Slapin would later be involved in the development of Ortiz’s The Good Rainbow Road.

Jane Haladay's essay on BEARSTONE by Will Hobbs

Earlier this week, I said I'd be posting a review essay of Will Hobbs' Bearstone. The essay is by friend and colleague, Jane Haladay, an Assistant Professor in American Indian Studies. I am grateful to her for giving it to me. As readers in children's literature know, Will Hobbs is one of the writers who has written a lot of books with Native content. Though I've got a few pages of notes on his Kokopelli's Flute, I've not yet posted my thoughts on it. Suffice it to say (as you'll see when you read Jane's essay), I find it lacking.

____________________________________________

Desecrations and Desires:

White Male Fantasy in Will Hobbs’ Bearstone

Jane Haladay, Ph.D.

The University of North Carolina at Pembroke

January was coming to a close, which meant the stressful holiday season, thankfully, would finally be over. The joyful event of watching President Barrack Obama formally take office last week had also come and gone, and it was now time to get back to the business of untangling some serious problems under the leadership of an intelligent, articulate diplomat who, at one point in his Inaugural Address, invoked Scripture to emphasize that “the time has come to set aside childish things.” Fallen Catholic that I am, I still had to say “Amen” to that.

The President obviously wasn’t talking about children’s literature, but to make a leap from the President’s words to literature for children and young adults, it struck me that the time has come not only to set aside literature that contains destructive stereotypical representations of Native peoples, but for all of us to become more vocal about it. People still may or may not listen, but we will at least be aware that we haven’t sat idly by, allowing ongoing generations of ignorant educators and accepting students to continue perpetuating violence in the ways American Indians are represented in children’s and YA lit.

This point was driven home to me a few months earlier, when I groggily clicked open the following email as I sipped my morning coffee:

Dr. Halladay,

I am an eighth grade English teacher. In November my students and I will be reading a novel (BEARSTONE by Will Hobbs) that touches on Ute Indian mythology, stories, etc. I am writing in the hope that you might be able to come speak to my students about American Indian myths and folklore, religion and burial practices, etc. I plan to teach the novel between November 12 and 24. If you can't come, if you know of another member of the department or even a student who might like to speak to my students, please let me know and I will take care of the details here. Thanks for your consdderation [sic].

I looked at my calendar: October 31. Sure enough, Native American Heritage Month was in the wind, the time when many K-12 educators seem to remember Indian peoples for the first and only time during the school year, for better and for worse. Yes, there are plenty of excellent teachers out there doing good work, and there are still plenty who don’t know anything about American Indians and don’t want their fantasies corrected. As it turned out, my exchange with after receiving her email proved to fall in the second category.

While I was tempted to delete this email based on the bad mechanics and the misspelling of my name alone (remember, I hadn’t had my coffee yet), I did not. Thinking this could be another one of those “teachable moments” that we educators are supposed to embrace, urged me instead to respond.

But first, I did two things. Since I had never heard of this book nor its author, I looked up Bearstone on Oyate.com and, not finding it there, on amazon.com. Then I emailed Dr. Debbie Reese, a Native scholar whose research interest is children’s literature for Native American children and youth. The descriptions I read on amazon.com were troubling. For example, eighth grader Bobby Anderson notes that, “This book really put the fact that being alone is not a good idea into perspective,” while someone identifying her or himself as “A Kid’s Review” alerts us that “Cloyd [Bearstone’s protagonist] is a person that likes to keep thing to himself. He can sometime get really mad that he decides to run away [sic].”

While these descriptions were not especially helpful in allowing me a cursory understanding of what this book was about, one, written by “Roger L. Bagula” (someone possibly over the age of twelve) was extremely telling: “A half Ute, half Navajo is wild and alone. School has failed and his relatives are failing him. He just in time finds an old man to father him. It is a rough story and the boy who calls himself lone bear because of a blue stone he found in a burial cave of the ancient ones. A story of redemption and friendship that grows to love. Very well written and with mining and hunting, besides horses and ranching.” Clearly, there’s a whole lot going on in Bearstone, especially, it seemed, under the heading of taming the wild in a variety of forms.

When Dr. Reese emailed me back about this 154-page novel, which was published in 1989, she confirmed the sense I was already getting about Bearstone’s author. “Hobbs makes a good living writing crap, getting guest speaking gigs at conferences, etc. I haven't read the book you've asked about, but KOKOPELLI'S FLUTE is crap.” Unsurprisingly, it turns out that Bearstone, too, is crap.

Meanwhile, I had written to the local teacher to inform her that my speaking to her students about “American Indian myths and folklore, religion and burial practices, etc.” wasn’t going to happen, if indeed I came to speak to her students. But maybe we could work something else out? I wrote:

Thank you so much for your invitation to visit your class. I could probably visit to discuss some of the topics you're interested in, but I would like to read BEARSTONE first, and speak with you about it, before setting a date. I have never heard of this book, which doesn't necessarily mean anything (there are plenty of books I've never heard of), but after reading a description about it online, I have some questions. Have you taught this book before? What do you think of it, and how do students respond? As a teacher of Native American literature (by which I mean, literature written by American Indian authors), I'm always suspicious of literature written by non-Natives that represents Native characters as ‘wild’ or ‘troubled,’ and who – as seems to be true for the boy in BEARSTONE – are ultimately ‘humanized’ by white characters. As I said, I haven't read the book yet, so this is my initial and admittedly superficial response.

If I visit your class, I might raise some of these issues about the text (also in regard to the controversies around writing about sacred objects, burial practices, etc. that you mentioned), if I see these as problematic after I read the novel. In other words, I would probably not give a presentation on Native stories and cultural practices detached from the politics of writing about them. If you're comfortable with that possibility, then let's talk.

This wasn’t exactly the presentation she had hoped for, I guess, since her next reply was less than enthusiastic about the approach I was suggesting. Her thorough response to my email was the longest in our approximately week-long exchange, and she hoped to convince me, it seemed, of why Hobbs book was a good one for any middle school student:

I have taught this book previously and found that the students really connected with Cloyd, the protagonist, as someone of their own age who is searching for identity much as they are. I don't see so much that the boy in the story is ‘rescued’ by anyone. He's a kid with problems like so many other kids have. No one attempts to change him or his cultural beliefs. During the course of the story, he is accepted as he is and given the freedom to explore who he is, make his own choices and mistakes, deal with the consequences of his choices, and learn about the value of love and friendship.

During the study we discuss talismans, which is relative to the title. I focus on the character's growth and the rather significant changes in him from beginning to end. We discuss the relationship between the protagonist and the old man with whom he lives, which becomes one of mutual love and respect by story's end. The author develops themes of growth from adversity (‘the hurt you get over makes you stronger’) and the importance of understanding of one's heritage among others, and frankly I feel that the novel is very respectful of the protagonist's culture….

I am not a scholar of Native American literature; I teach kids who struggle with the issues this character struggles with. My concern is that they take away from this novel some hope that they are not alone, that the world is not out to get them, that literature is a place they can go for escape, but also a means for self-examination and understanding.

After reading this outpouring of her reasons for teaching Bearstone and her analysis of the text, I wondered a bit why she had contacted me in the first place. She seemed to have it all figured out, so why did she need me, “a scholar of Native American literature”? Oh yeah, I realized: to tell her about Ute burial practices and talismans! I would be useful in making more colorful those markers of “Indianness” this text offers up to students, without being able to discuss why the entire premise of the story about a “wild” Indian adolescent who is “straightened out” by a kindly white man is problematic from a Native perspective in the first place. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse pretty quickly.

Hey, I’m hip to the bildungsroman; I taught high school English for eight years before teaching college. I made it clear to the teacher that I have great appreciation for the difficulties middle and high school teachers face in finding meaningful literature that students will actually read and respond to. But is Bearstone a place where American Indian students can go “for escape,” or is it just another space where they are captured, stereotyped, and offended? Could the teacher really assess whether this novel is “very respectful of the protagonist's culture,” when her invitation to have me come and speak about Ute culture suggests she doesn’t really know much, if anything, about it?

The junior high school where she teachers caters to a 15% population of American Indian students; 51% are African American, 30% are white, 3% are “Hispanic,” and 1% are Asian. Robeson County, where the school is located, is the poorest county in the state and, as the home of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, the county also has the highest population of American Indian people in the state. Forty-nine percent of the seventh and eighth graders attending this school are eligible for the free lunch program, a figure 10% higher than the North Carolina state average. During the 2006-2007 school year, this junior high did not make adequate yearly progress in student learning. A majority of the school’s 39 classroom teachers (59%) have fewer than ten years’ teaching experience, a figure that is 5% higher than the state average; also 5% higher than the state average is the teacher turnover rate: 29% to the state’s 24%. Obviously, then, this is a school where providing students with great novels to find “some hope that they are not alone, [and] that the world is not out to get them” is a really, really good idea.

Unfortunately, Bearstone is not such a novel. And you don’t need to be a Ute person nor a Ute scholar (neither of which I am) to understand that Bearstone is definitely not respectful of Ute culture.

Introducing Cloyd, the troubled protagonist of the novel, whom we first meet as he lies his way into an IHS hospital posing as a delivery boy, in hopes of tracking down the Navajo father who abandoned him and his mother when Cloyd was born. Cloyd’s Ute mother, meanwhile, has died giving birth to him. Cloyd has “run away from the Ute group home in Colorado and hitched all the way to Window Rock” (1) on a quest to finally meet his dad, only to discover that his father is a vegetable as a result of an auto accident four years ago. Cloyd, who is fourteen (8), has been seeking a father figure since he was born, but he’s disgusted by the reality of the man he finds: “What he saw terrified him. This wasn’t even a human being. It was more like a shriveled-up mummy attached to a bunch of tubes….How could this be his father? Was it even alive?” (2-3). Cloyd “threw the flowers in the trash” (4) that he had brought for his long-lost dad and departs, without so much as a backward glance. So ends Chapter 1.

If the tragic victimry of the first four pages doesn’t grab your attention, hold on: there’s a lot more to come. By page six, Cloyd is being driven by his white housemother to her white friend Walter Landis’s ranch in the high desert of Colorado, where she is taking Cloyd as a last resort because “[h]e failed all seven of his classes,” either because he won’t or doesn’t know how to do the work due to the four-year gap in his colonial education. “Four years!” Walter exclaims when the housemother tells him about this gap. “Where was he?” “Out in the canyons, herding his grandmother’s goats,” explains Cloyd’s housemother. “I think he’s at least half-wild” (8).

Hobbs offers not a hint of cultural awareness around traditional Indigenous education, or the fact that four years of living in his homelands herding his grandmother’s goats might have taught Cloyd a few things – including his Ute language – which can’t be found within the walls of the group home or the pages of books written in English. Unfortunately, Hobbs’ colonial fantasies of “wild” Indians is one of his least egregious depictions of Native life in Bearstone; at this point in the story, he’s just getting warmed up.

Will Hobbs’ worst assault on cultural sensitivity manifests in a deeply disturbing scene still early in the novel, during which Cloyd is ostensibly reconnecting with his Ute ancestral ways. Rebellious as usual, Cloyd has ditched his housemother to climb the sandstone cliffs behind Walter’s ranch before he has even had a chance to meet Walter. The red-and-white cliffs remind Cloyd of home, and he heads for them because he remembers his grandmother telling him that their people had originally lived in “Colorado, especially the mountains above Durango,” before gold-seeking white men “wanted them out of the way” and they moved to White Mesa (12). After Cloyd makes his harrowing climb up one of the high sandstone cliffs, he rests inside a cool cave. As he rests there, he notices an unusual looking object wedged into a crack in the cave. He then “shimmied into the dark, narrow crack until his hands closed on some kind of a bundle,” which he then takes into the dim light to examine (14).

Unlike Will Hobbs, I will not describe the fictional contents of the infant burial bundle that Cloyd unwraps and inspects in detail. While I imagine Hobbs may have been pleased with the anthropological accuracy with which he describes the sacred objects and human remains in this bundle, it is extremely upsetting to read his description, to which I had a visceral response that made me want to push the book away from me. These details are even more troubling in that Native and other culturally aware readers are asked to believe that Cloyd would not have understood what he was holding before he opened it and, once he did open it, that he would proceed to behave as he does. Hobbs tells us that Cloyd’s grandmother had “talked about such things” and had given him advice about how to handle any burial objects Cloyd might one day come in contact with: “behave carefully, treat the buried one with the utmost respect, and don’t make any mistakes. The Ancient Ones are not people to be trifled with” (15).

It’s extremely difficult to understand why, then, having recalled his grandmother’s reasoned and important words, Cloyd would not only have unwrapped the burial bundle but would go one step further and steal a burial object he finds inside a piece of pottery that rests beside the bundle. When he extracts the pot from the crevice near the bundle, Cloyd’s first thought, after he “took in [the pot’s] beauty and wholeness” was that he had heard that such pots “were worth a thousand dollars unbroken” (15). Cloyd then makes an even more spectacular find: “a small blue stone about two inches long, worn smooth by long handling. Turquoise. Two eyes, a snout, and a humped back. A bear. Surely, a bear to accompany the infant on the long journey” (15).

Cloyd reflects on what his grandmother has told him about the significance of bears to the Ute people, and how “[i]f you could make a bear your personal guardian, you would be a strong man and lucky” (15). Cloyd needs some luck, obviously, so it’s only logical that he decides he needs the bearstone more than the departed infant Ancient One, right? Well sure, especially when you’re a fictional Indian boy whose thinking is being crafted by a white man. In Bearstone, Hobbs’ Indian fantasies won’t get anywhere without the Native protagonist buying into them, right down to ransacking one of his own ancestor’s graves and ruminating upon the expensive pottery and turquoise talismans to be found there. At this point, I was becoming downright queasy about the idea of the teacher wanting me to come to her class to discuss “American Indian myths and folklore, religion and burial practices, etc.,” as her interest at least in burial practices clearly originated in this scene, one that enacts the most violence upon Ute people in the entire short novel.

Cloyd’s story proceeds on pretty much along these problematic lines, with side trips for Cloyd to cut down an entire orchard full of Walter’s beloved peach trees in a fit of rage, trees that Walter’s deceased wife had brought from distant lands and nurtured on the ranch. Now thoroughly disgusted with Cloyd’s lack of response to his many attempts at kindnesses (dang those resistant Indians anyway!), Walter returns Cloyd to his grandmother’s home on the Ute Reservation, where Cloyd knows that “in the slickrock country, he could live wild and free” (63). Oh, did I forget to mention that by now Cloyd has given himself his own Indian name, Lone Bear?

When Cloyd is reunited with his apparently long-suffering grandmother, the one who has educated Cloyd in those Ute traditions he is still aware of, Hobbs does not bother naming her. It isn’t necessary, apparently, as she is merely another white male fantasy of the Indian earth-mother grandma who cooks, offers words of sage counsel to her grandson, and doesn’t bug him with silly questions. Hobbs describes Cloyd’s grandmother as “A Ute woman in the old style,…dark, earthy, and large, the mainstay of her diet being frybread” (64). Cloyd stays for one meal with his grandmother, but is all the while feeling so guilty about having chainsawed down the old white man’s peach trees that he leaves immediately after the meal to hitchhike back and ask for a second chance with Walter. And that’s the most we hear about Grandma for the remainder of the novel. Cloyd, it seems, has an easy time of putting his blood relatives and his entire community out of his mind when he has a chance to show a white rancher what he’s really worth.

Of course Walter takes Cloyd back (hooray!), and for the remainder of the novel, the two are up in the mountains where Walter is trying to revive his dream, with Cloyd’s help, of striking it rich in his dilapidated gold mine. One passage in this section contains perhaps the most direct critique of colonialism in the book, although it doesn’t make up for the rest of the nonsense and is really one more token nod by Hobbs to the tragic “demise” of Native culture at the hands of “conquering” whites. Cloyd recalls that his grandmother had told him that:

The uranium made you get sick and die early….She never said if gold made you sick. But then he remembered what she said about gold. It made people crazy and dishonest. First the white men promised the Utes they could keep the mountains forever, but that was before gold was discovered and miners came pouring in. The white men forgot all about their promise. The Utes were told to stay out of the mountains. They couldn’t roam around anymore and live in the old way. (91)

Even here, describing the lifeways of Ute people as “roaming around” to “live in the old way” evokes a sense of aimless and anachronistic drifting, rather than suggesting the sophisticated patterns of Ute land use that resulted in their traditional patterns of seasonal migration.

Bearstone is a frustrating book not only because of Will Hobbs’ white fantasies about Indian exoticism, or because of his offensive, stereotypical depictions of much of his subject matter. The book is also troublesome because it actually raises real issues that American Indian youth and their communities experience, but it does not offer any larger context to attempt achieving real understanding by a general readership as to why these issues exist. For example, during Cloyd’s one brief visit to his Grandmother, “Cloyd wanted to talk. He’d spoken no Ute in the last year, as the boys from the Colorado reservation no longer knew the language. Right away he found himself telling her about Walter…” (64). This passage does not clarify whether Cloyd is speaking English or Ute. Does being with Grandmother reinvigorate his fluent Ute, is Grandmother speaking English, or is Cloyd speaking English and Grandmother speaking Ute? It matters, but we don’t know. We know only that “the boys from the Colorado reservation no longer knew the language,” though we don’t know whether these boys are living at off-reservation boarding schools, at Cloyd’s group home, or if they are still on the reservation. At the same time, while the implication that Ute language has vanished with Cloyd’s generation alludes to the unfortunate reality of Southern Ute language’s endangered status among its tribal youth, it is not necessarily true that not speaking the language is the same as not knowing the language, or not understanding it. Hobbs does not help us understand these shadings around the crucial issue of Native languages, however, and so Ute language – and Cloyd’s diminishing use of it – are reduced to one more feature of Indian culture that, like roaming around to live in the old way, signals Indians and their ways as fading into the mists of time.

As a non-Native scholar who writes about Natives subjects, I fault Hobbs for his conscious lack of complexity in depicting the story of a complex Native life. It is irresponsible for any author, but especially a non-Native author, to simply plop into his novel without at least minimal contextualization references to significant circumstances in Indian communities such as the decline of original languages; child abandonment; the foster care system; Native youth who experience cultural disconnection from tribal heritages; and relationships toward sacred materials and ancestral remains. All of these are in Bearstone, but as Hobbs depicts them they exist only to reinscribe whitestream notions of vanishing Indians and the titillating markers of their apparently stagnant cultures. For a general reader unfamiliar with American Indian historical issues and their contemporary legacies, Hobbs’ references sprinkled throughout the text suggest that he is an authority on Ute experience, and thus that this portrait of the two Ute characters he paints -- Cloyd and his grandmother – are the way Ute people must be.

I’m not sure my exchange with the teacher who emailed me accomplished anything. And while it certainly didn’t prove to be any kind of teachable moment for her or for her students, it was definitely instructive to me, as this essay makes clear. By the time I finished reading Bearstone, I was quite horrified that I had been willing to come speak about anything in connection with this book. She, in the meantime, had decided that, based on my first email, if I were going to talk about Native literature in general, the school might as well capitalize on my time and gather up the entire eighth grade to listen to my presentation. In an assembly. On a Friday. Hmm; hold on a minute here. But I wanted to be a good citizen, so I initially agreed to this proposal. Yet as the teacher and I corresponded about the details, and I thought more about my former days supervising assemblies as a high school teacher, the more dubious I grew about the value of making any kind of educational presentation to a crowd of eighth graders. (On a Friday.) Even the teacher emailed that while I could have two combined class periods for the assembly, shorter might be better because “the kids lose interest, which you no doubt know.” Yeah, I know; in fact, I was rapidly losing interest myself.

I wrote to her then about my concerns around Bearstone and suggested something that I honestly thought might help be more helpful for everyone – the teachers, their students, and me:

Having read the book has caused me to rethink the idea of presenting on Native literature to an assembly of 8th graders, and I have an alternative proposal. I feel your students would ultimately gain more real understanding about Native American literature from you and the other teachers with whom they already have established relationships, the people they trust and work with every day, not an outside speaker who shows up once to "tell" them about a topic and then leaves without much chance for follow-up or questions beyond the assembly period. It can be hard to get students really interested in certain topics this way, unless the presentation is fairly razzle-dazzle, which my topic does not lend itself to.

What I would like to offer instead is a workshop with teachers at your school who are interested in hearing about the issues involved with teaching American Indian literature, and texts that include Indian characters. I could offer some guidelines for sensitive text selections, some history on controversial issues, and some suggestions for texts that offer positive portrayals of Native peoples. In this way, teachers at your school could have a more sustained dialogue with their students about these issues when teaching certain texts now and in the future, having had a chance to consider the issues themselves in advance. It would also prevent me from possibly contradicting some of the things you will have discussed with your students about BEARSTONE prior to my presentation, when I mention inappropriate aspects of non-Native literature that includes Native characters. I have no desire to present information to your students that would make you or other teachers at your school feel uncomfortable about your approach to a text, and I have no wish to confuse students. But I do hope to clarify some issues so that future readings of BEARSTONE or any text you teach with Indian characters might be viewed with additional understandings of how a Native reader might perceive the literature.

But this was not what she wanted. The same day I wrote, she emailed me back a terse one-liner stating, “I need to discuss this possibility with our principal. I will let you know what we decide and get back to you as soon as possible.” She expressed no interest in the idea of a workshop, and I never heard from her again.

It’s too bad, though. I did want to try to negotiate something with her and her students. But I think, since she clearly enjoyed the story as Hobbs wrote it, that she preferred not to have her image of Hobbs’ novel intruded upon with a critique of its offensiveness to Native people, in the same way Hobbs preferred not to have his story intruded upon by the addition of cultural appropriateness and complexity regarding Native lives. This teacher was looking at Bearstone as an ultimately happy tale of cultural bridging, of an elderly white stand-in father who eventually soothes all the wounds of a “wild” Indian boy who is trying to figure out who he is. And, she was looking at a book that reinscribes white fantasies of “love conquers all,” where relationships with biological family, returning to one’s cultural community, and leaving Indigenous sacred objects in the places they were found are antiquated notions of a primitive past that block real progress in relations between the so-called “races,” in the spirit of “we’re all the same beneath the skin.” In Bearstone, Will Hobbs’ equation of Cloyd minus parents minus tribe minus homeland plus kindly white widower equals new family and new home is good enough for the teacher, and thus good enough for her students.

We were definitely looking at Bearstone differently. I was looking at a book I hoped would offer the junior high school students, Native and non, of rural Southeastern North Carolina a tale that both outlined and explained some of the reasons around the complexities of being a Native adolescent in the twentieth century; a story in which the way out of the troubled adolescence of one Native boy did not automatically require rescue by yet another incarnation of the Great White Father; a novel in which a young Ute man who was raised by his traditional grandmother would at least have known, despite having left his community for extended periods of time, that to steal a burial item from an infant ancestor was an unthinkable, egotistical breach.

The conclusion of Bearstone finds Cloyd happily living at Walter’s ranch full time, beaming with delight when a nursery truck arrives with a load of young peach trees that Cloyd has purchased as a surprise gift for Walter to replace the trees Cloyd chain-sawed in his earlier killing spree. All’s well that end’s well, right? Not exactly. In Will Hobbs’ creating such questionable young adult literature, and in twenty-first century educators perpetuating the violent messages of Bearstone without understanding the damages of those messages to Native and non-Native students, I wonder who it is who actually lives happily ever after.

Home for awhile, racial profiling, an upcoming essay...

I've been home for awhile, at Nambe Pueblo, and am now back at work in Illinois. Postings to American Indians in Children's Literature will be scant over the summer while I focus on the academic writing that universities require.

Later this week I will post an essay about Bearstone, one of Will Hobbs' books. It is written by Jane Haladay, an assistant professor in American Indian Studies at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. In August, 2008, I pointed to her article about teaching Richard Van Camp's The Lesser Blessed. If you haven't read his YA novel or her essay, make time for both.

So. Racial profiling. Daughter Liz and I drove to Nambe, a road trip we know well, one we've done many times. Around 5:00 PM on Sunday, May 31, as we turned south on I44 in Oklahoma City, making our way to I40, I noted a sheriff's patrol car by the side of the road. The officer inside was just watching cars pass. He was parked at a right angle to the road, not parallel to it. A couple of minutes later, I glanced in my rear view mirror and he was behind me, lights flashing.

I pulled over and rolled down the window. From behind my car, he gestured to me to get out of the car. He walked about 20 feet away from the road, saying it was to get away from the traffic, and asked if I knew why I'd been stopped. I had not been speeding, or driving recklessly, so did not know why he pulled me over. He said that Oklahoma laws about lane changing require that the driver signal 500 feet before and after executing a lane change. I said ok, and then he began a series of questions...

Where was I coming from
Where is that town
When did I leave there
Who was with me
Where were we going
What were we going to do there
How long were we going to be there

I answered all questions, with a growing unease. Each answer was met with another question, designed to check the answer I'd given. He had my driver's license, and asked if the car was insured and registered. I said yes, and started to the car to get the items. He said he would get them, and walked to the passenger side of the car where Liz was sitting. He tapped on the window. She tried to open the door, but he wanted her to open the window. (As I write this, I realize this added to her own discomfort, because she had to reach over to turn on the car in order to roll down the electric window.)

He turned and called to me "Does she speak English?" That question confirmed my suspicion that he thought we were illegally immigrants.

I was too far from the car to hear what he said to her. He returned to me, insurance and registration and her driver's license in hand, and asked more questions, and then this:

"Have you ever been arrested?"

I said I had not.

"Are you sure you've never been arrested, maybe a long time ago, because I'm going to run this and I don't want any surprises popping up."

I don't like admitting fear, but I was afraid, and said so, reiterating what I'd already said several times:

"Your questions are scaring me. I have never been arrested. I am a professor in American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois. That's my daughter. We're from a reservation in New Mexico, and we're going there now to spend time with my family...."

Something I said made him change his mind. He handed me our driver's licenses, car registration and insurance, and said I could go. I got back in the car and told Liz what he'd said. She said he'd asked her all those questions, too, including "Have you ever been arrested."

We were shaken by the incident. Due to my research and study, I know that racial profiling happens, and that people of color can instantly find themselves being put inside a police car and/or handcuffed by overzealous (fill in whatever descriptor you'd use yourself) officers of the law.

We drove on through OKC, checked into a hotel in Clinton, OK, and I went online to file a report with the ACLU. I went to the OK Sheriff's website. I called the office number and requested a complaint form.

Fear is an awful thing. With a doctorate, and study in racial politics, I should have been able to respond differently. I should have thought to read his badge, get his name and badge number, but I did not even think of that. I also did not have to answer any of those questions, and I think I knew that, but that knowledge was blocked by fear.

The officer's barrage of questions was intimidating and threatening. That was only a traffic stop. Things worse than that happen to people of color all the time. We were lucky.

New book: SIMON J. ORTIZ: A POETIC LEGACY OF INDIGENOUS CONTINUANCE

Today's post is about a new book, Simon J. Ortiz: A Poetic Legacy of Indigenous Continuance. I bought a copy last week...

Daughter Liz and I spent most of the last week in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) annual meeting. Next year's meeting will be in Tucson, Arizona. Anyone that has anything to do with the creation, publication, or distribution of literature by/about American Indians should consider attending this meeting. The insights gained in a few short days will go a long way towards improving the quality of literature for children.

When I'm at Native meetings and conferences, I'm somewhat embarrassed at most of the children's books by/about American Indians that are published. In child lit land, people embrace bogus stuff that would never fly in a college Native lit course. In child lit land, crap (yes, I'm irate today) like Touching Spirit Bear flies off the shelves. Amongst those who study Native literature, it's equivalent for adult readers is the target of much laughter and derision. It is not taken seriously as "Native" literature and it isn't taught as Native literature.

But over in child lit land, there is a clamor for the sequel to Touching Spirit Bear. Like I said, it is embarrassing. And indefensible, too.

It has got to get better.

It can get better if people in child lit land take some time to read Native scholarship, and attend Native conferences and meetings.

At last year's NAISA meeting in Athens, Georgia, my dear friend Evelina Zuni Lucero (Isleta/Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo) introduced me to Simon Ortiz. Through our conversation, I volunteered to write a chapter for a book Evelina was co-editing. That book is Simon J. Ortiz: A Poetic Legacy of Indigenous Continuance. Most of the contributors to the volume were at NAISA, giving papers. The contributors (tribal affiliations are in parens) are:

Elizabeth Ammons
Elizabeth Archuleta (Yaqui)
Esther Belin (Dine)
Jeff Berglund
Kimberly Blaeser (Chippewa)
Gregory Cajete (Tewa)
Sophia Cantave
David Dunaway
Roger Dunsmore
Lawrence Evers
Gwen Westerman Griffin (Sisston Wahpeton Dakota Oyate)
Joy Harjo (Mvskoke)
Geary Hobson (Cherokee, Arkansas Quapaw)
David L. Moore
Debbie Reese (Nambe Pueblo)
Kimberly Roppolo (Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek)
Ralph Salisbury (Cherokee)
Kathryn W. Shanley (Assiniboine)
Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo)
Sean Kicummah Teuton (Cherokee)
Laura Tohe (Dine)
Robert Warrior (Osage)

Hopefully, you have Joy Harjo's The Good Luck Cat on your shelves, along with Leslie Marmon Silko's Storyteller or Ceremony. Do you have a copy of Like a Hurricane: The American Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee, co-written by Robert Warrior? Remember the poem about basal readers that I posted here some time back? That was Laura Tohe's poem. These four people are among the most read and most influential Native writers, and they are in the volume because Ortiz's work meant something to their own growth.

In his 1981 essay in MELUS, Ortiz says that we (Native people) creatively used foreign (European) ritual, ideas, material, and language (English) on our own terms. In Reinventing the Enemy's Language, Joy Harjo writes:

When our lands were colonized the language of the colonizer was forced on us. It was when we began to create with this new language that we named it ours, made it usefully tough and beautiful (p. 23-24).

That is what Simon J. Ortiz: A Poetic Legacy of Indigenous Continuance is about. Using language for continuance. Get a copy, read it, think, read it again, and think about what you write (if you're a writer), what you publish (if you're a publisher), what you review (if you're a reviewer), and what you buy for your children, your library, your school.

Read Simon Ortiz's essays, stories, poetry, and children's books. Spend some time immersed in this reality, not the fantasy where Indians are romantic or tragic figures of the past. Do this, and books for children will get better.

[Update, 9:49 AM, May 27] : Next year's meeting of NAISA will be in Tucson, AZ, not Tempe. Thanks to commenter, Matthew, for catching the error. I also linked to the association's webpage.]

Bad Indians, a poem by Ryan Red Corn

This is an awesome video. Use it with students in high school English classes, film, social studies, social justice courses...

[Note: If you cannot see it, go right to it on youtube: Bad Indians.

Carolyn Dunn on COYOTE SPEAKS

As readers of American Indians in Children's Literature know, I have strong feelings about retellings of Native story, especially when the source for the retelling is the stories archived by the Bureau of Ethnography in the late 1800s and early 1900s. My analysis of Penny Pollock's Turkey Girl and of Kristina Rodanas' Dragonfly's Tale demonstrates that Frank Hamilton Cushing misinterpreted what he observed when he was living amongst the Zuni people.

In my research, I search for books, chapters, and articles about those archived stories, and, about disclosure of sacred stories. Pueblo people are very guarded about what we share. On this site, I've written about intellectual property, and pointed to the Hopi Tribe and their statement on intellectual property.

As I prepare my paper for next week's meeting of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association in Minneapolis, I'm revisiting the topic of disclosure. Last year, my paper was about Arrow to the Sun, Turkey Girl and Dragonfly's Tale. I'm reading (again) from Elsie Clews Parson's monograph on the Tewa Indians, The Social Organization of the Tewa of New Mexico, published in 1929. (Tewa is the language we speak at my pueblo, Nambe. It is spoken by several of the northern pueblos.) Parson's was amongst us in the 1920s. In the preface of her monograph, she wrote:

Imitating the secretiveness observed in all the Rio Grande pueblos, I settled in Alcalde, the Mexican town two or three miles north of San Juan, and here, thanks to my helpful and understanding hosts of San Gabriel ranch, I secured informants from San Juan, Santa Clara, and San Ildefonso. My informants worked singly or in couples, niece and uncle, sister and brother, mother and daughter, one interpreting for the other.

I ask you to consider what she says. The pueblos were secretive. Why was that? To circumvent this secretiveness, she set up her research site away from the pueblos, so that her informants would not be seen, so that she could work in secret.

She says that the informant from San Juan was the most helpful, and that his stories are the ones in her Tewa Tales, first published in 1926. Here's what she said about her informant from San Ildefonso:

Information from San Ildefonso was least satisfactory. The women were particularly timid and not well informed; the man was a threefold liar, lying from secretiveness, from his sense of burlesque, and from sheer laziness. Curiously enough, this man, whose social position is of the best, but whose veracity is of the worst according to both white and Indian standards, has probably been hitherto one of our sources of authority on the Tewa.

How does she know he was lying? How does she know what parts of what he said to her were lies? She does not say that she rejected his information, so, is it in her book? She obviously thinks that some of her informants were telling her the truth, but how does she know that?! In short, that paragraph makes me suspicious of her entire monograph.

Her Tewa Tales was recently republished, with a foreword by Barbara Babcock. Babcock includes the first paragraph I excepted above, but not the second one. There is, I think it is fair to say, an assumption that the informant from San Juan was not lying to Parsons. Again, though, I wonder, on what basis did Parsons have confidence in what he told her?

Like I said earlier, we Pueblo people are careful about what we disclose. Disclosure is taken up in Cynthia L. Chavez's dissertation titled Negotiated Representations: Pueblo Artists and Culture. She is Pueblo, raised at San Felipe. Here's a paragraph from the abstract:

Most Pueblo people have committed themselves to the non-disclosure of what they deem culturally sensitive or sacred, because of cultural prohibitions learned since childhood. In this dissertation, I investigate Pueblo artist' reasons for refraining from depicting certain images and/or themes in their artwork. I have interviewed various Pueblo artists of New Mexico (excluding artists from Zuni Pueblo) who choose not to depict culturally sensitive imagery in their artwork due to their cultural heritage. This research is an attempt to obtain insights into Pueblo cultural beliefs about non-disclosure/representation and how this impacts Pueblo people as participants in contemporary Western society and their own Pueblo societies.

Maybe the San Juan informant was not in the "most" category that Chavez writes about, but I wouldn't count on it. Knowing this about us (Pueblo Indians) makes me wonder about stories collected from other tribal nations. This morning, searching for writing on stories from those archives, I came across an essay by Carolyn Dunn. Posted on January 27, 2009 at her blog, Dunn's essay is definitely worth reading. She references an article she wrote in Reading Native American Women: Critical and Creative Representations and, the introduction to Through the Eye of the Deer. I'm going to get and read both items.

In her essay, she talks about Beverly Slapin's review of a book Dunn and Ari Burke published last year. The book is Coyote Speaks. On November 16, 2008, I posted Beverly Slapin's review of Ari Berk and Carolyn Dunn's book, Coyote Speaks. In her essay, Dunn effectively counters some of Slapin's review. Dunn makes several excellent points.

When I posted the review, I indicated that I had not read the book, that I was waiting for my copy. It has not arrived, or, I've misplaced it. I'll reorder today.

That said, I don't think Dunn will persuade me that it is ok to use those archives. Part of my resistance is based on what I know happens to Native stories when they are published in picture book format for young readers. Pollock and Rodanas added their interpretations to the stories Cushing published, thereby adding another layer of misinterpretation to the stories.

And, instead of being treated with the same respect as stories from other world religions, our stories are shelved over in the folklore section of the library. Dunn's Coyote Speaks is shelved in the 398.2089 section of the library, which is where all Native "folktales" are put. I think it should be in the 200s with other books about religion.

Thinking, and waiting for my copy of Coyote Speaks...

Patricia Wrede's THE THIRTEENTH CHILD

I am getting a lot of email asking if I've read Wrede's new book, The Thirteenth Child. People are sending me links to discussions of the book. But! I'm on a deadline and unable to read it till later this summer. For now, I'll share some of the links I've been sent.

Pioneer Fantasy: Patricia Wrede's Thirteenth Child - May 4th, 2009

Fiction Theory, May 9th, 2009

"Next Verse, Same as the First" - May 8th, at LiveJournal

Learning just a little about the book, my thought is "she did what?!"

Carved Indian statue at welcome rest area, I80, PA

I'm on the road, en route to get my daughter from end-of-year at college. Yesterday, I entered Pennsylvania and stopped at the 'Welcome' rest area on Interstate 80. There is a tall, carved wood statue there, of an Indian head. The plaque at the base of the statue says:

"Dedicated to the American Indians (Seneca)
...But they won't be forgotten,
But will be remembered in our minds
And in our hearts.
Love is life."

It is signed "Peter Toth, June 30th, 1973."

I recall that Toth is trying to put one of these in every state. I don't have time to do research on him or this work right now, but I am curious. Seneca, he says, who will be remembered, because they are.... what? What does Toth think? What do his words suggest to you?

Teachers! Before school is out for the summer, ask students to pay attention to these sorts of statues if they come across them. Of, if there's one near you, study the statue, dedication.

Just in case you're wondering, the Seneca people are alive and well.

Missy Whiteman's Video: Indigenous Holocaust

Stunning video and commentary about boarding schools... Created by Missy Whiteman, titled Indigenous Holocaust. If you teach Shirley Sterling's My Name Is Seepeetza, consider using this video along with it.

Brianne Grant's thesis on Education in YA Lit

Back on July 9th, 2007, I blogged about Brianne Grant's article "Opening the Cache of Canadian Secrets: The Residential School Experience in Books for Children."

Today, I point you to Grant's thesis: Where Hope Lives: An Examination of the Relationship Between Protagonists and Education Systems in Contemporary Native North American Young Adult Fiction.

She considers educational systems as portrayed in four novels:

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
• The Porcupine Year, by Louise Erdrich
• Good for Nothing, by Michel Noel
• No Time to Say Goodbye: Children's Stories of Kuper Island Residential School, by Sylvia Olsen, written with Rita Morris and Ann Sam

I'm partway through it (gotta stop and do some writing of my own) and look forward to sitting down with it when I have more time. Her thesis may prove perfect for my History of American Indian Education course next spring.

Barbara Cooney's MISS RUMPHIUS

Though it is much loved and winner of an American Book Award, every time I think of Barbara Cooney's Miss Rumphius, the image that I recall is not the lovely lupines she walks amongst... Instead, I remember the page with three Indians. Did you see them?

Update: Try really hard to remember them... and if you can't, I've uploaded the page at my Images site.

Here's the image (added to AICL on September 20, 2012, 9:40 AM CST):

(Source for image: http://theartofchildrenspicturebooks.blogspot.com/2011/03/miss-rumphius.html)

And, here's the text for that page (also added on Sept 20, 2012):

Now he worked in the shop at the bottom of the house, making figureheads for the prows of ships, and carving Indians out of wood to put in front of cigar stores.

Source: Oklahoma Historical Society

Noted Creek writer, Alexander Lawrence Posey, said that the cigar store Indians "are the product of a white mans's factory, and bear no resemblance to the real article." Posey died in 1908. Is Cooney wrong for including this information in her book? It is factual as Cooney wrote it--carvers of that time period did carve figureheads for ships and wooden Indians, too--but given that Miss Rumphius was published in 1982 and the information about these carvings being stereotypical is quite old, perhaps she could have inserted "stereotypical" in front of "Indians." If she had done that, it would read:

"Now he worked in the shop at the bottom of the house, making figureheads for the prows of ships and carving stereotypical Indians out of wood to put in front of cigar stores."

Course, if she did that, the story wouldn't be as charming, but it would be more accurate, and it could prompt teachers, parents, and librarians to address stereotypes whenever they read the book to children.

Poems: WHEN THE RAIN SINGS

The National Museum of the American Indian has published some excellent books. Sometime back I wrote about their Do All Indians Live in Tipis?

Today I point you to another one. When the Rain Sings is a book of poems written by young Native people from several tribal nations: Ojibwe, Lakota, Omaha, Navajo, Cochiti/Kiowa, O'odham, Yaqui, Hopi, and Ute. When the Rain Sings was first published in 1999. The story behind the book is included in this new edition, which is dedicated to Lee Francis, the founding director of Wordcraft Circle. Through the committed work of Lee Francis and others, we've got more Native writers than ever before.

Most of the poems in When the Rain Sings are paired with an item at the museum. Rainbird Winters' poem "Manido Mashkimod (Spirit Bag)" is about bandolier bags. Alongside it is an Ojibwe bandolier bag.

Teachers who use the book will find the teaching guide helpful. It is on the "Ideas for the Classroom" page created by NMAI. There you can see three of the poems in the book. The book is available from NMAI for $14.95.

As I write about When the Rain Sings, sitting in my house in Illinois, listening to the rain on this cool spring morning, I wish I was home at Nambe. There, the rain has a delicious smell...

Louise Erdrich - 2009 Commencement Address at Dartmouth

Add this to your Author Study file of Louise Erdrich! She's giving the 2009 Commencement Address at Dartmouth. She will also be given an Honorary Degree.

Details here: Native American author Louise Erdrich '76 to give Dartmouth's 2009 Commencement address Sunday, June 14.

Here's an excerpt:

The daughter of a Native American (Ojibwe and French) mother and a German American father, Erdrich is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. She grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota and came to Dartmouth as a member of the College’s first class to include women. Since then she has built a career as a novelist, poet and author of children’s books, authoring 14 books that have become bestsellers or won awards — including the O. Henry Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Heartland Prize for Fiction. She was twice nominated for a National Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. One of her four daughters, Aza, is a member of the Dartmouth Class of 2011.

News: Alexie working on sequel to ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY

Editors Note on Feb 25, 2018: Please see my apology about promoting Alexie's work. --Debbie

~~~~

Fans of Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian will be happy to know that he is working on a sequel. I read this in an April 21st interview of Alexie published at a website called failbetter.com.

Some of you may know that he is working on another YA novel called Radioactive Love Song. In the interview, he says he set that book aside to work on a sequel to Diary. In the sequel, Arnold is a sophomore, and there's a romance with Penelope.

The interview is packed with information. He writes about the death of his sister and father. Here's an excerpt, about his appearance on the Colbert show:

You were on the Colbert Report in October—one of the only guests who’s ever been able to make Stephen Colbert speechless. What was it like being on the show?

It was great, but it’s funny because Indians are so invisible and because my career has gotten so big that I think people…they don’t forget that I’m Indian, but it becomes very secondary to the success. When I was on Colbert I had a double consciousness or triple consciousness about it…I was in the moment but then I was also thinking that this is really revolutionary for Indians…a rez boy holding his own verbally with one of the best in the business. It was big. I was proud that I also have that artistic ability. It was fun. He was a great guy. He came into the green room afterwards and congratulated me, which was very decent of him.

Alexie also talks about poetry, his love of writing poetry, and about his new book of poems, Face. Do head over to the site and read the interview.

Disclosure: Readers of American Indians in Children's Literature know I've written a lot about Alexie's Diary and that it is on my lists of recommended books. Recently, a couple of friends have found it problematic for its use of the word 'faggot.' In light of that and the recent suicides of two 11 year old boys who were taunted as gay, I'm going to reread the novel.

Slapin's HOW TO WRITE A CHILDREN'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE (FOR FUN AND PROFIT)

Below is a satirical essay by Beverly Slapin. She's provided me with several of these. They are, individually and collectively, outstanding. This one, How to Write a Children's Encyclopedia of Native American History and Culture (For Fun and Profit), is a companion to her critical review of a 2009 encylopedic set called "American History & Culture Encyclopedia.

Click on over to the Humor page at Oyate, scroll down to see the descriptions, and order copies of two satirical books they offer. Ten Little White People, and, Basic Skills Caucasian Americans Workbook are invaluable for helping people see the problems that can--and do--occur when someone (a writer) doesn't really know what they're looking at... Ten Little White People is $5.00, and Basic Skill is $13.00. I've bought many copies and keep buying more. They have a way of disappearing... People love them and borrow them, passing them along to friends.

______________________________________________________

[Note: This essay may not be published elsewhere without written permission from its author, Beverly Slapin. Copyright 2009 by Beverly Slapin. All rights reserved.]

How to Write a Children's Encyclopedia of Native American History and Culture (For Fun and Profit)

Everyone knows that children are incapable of complex thought and therefore need to be told what to think, so it’s very important to follow the established rules that have, for decades, enabled publishers to churn out the amazingly simplistic reference tools known as “children’s encyclopedias.” When putting together a children’s encyclopedia that deals with a particular ethnic group, especially great care must be taken. This author has used Rourke’s Native American History & Culture Encyclopedia (Rourke, 2009) as a model for creating a truly remarkable piece of work.


1. Don’t worry about getting your facts straight. Adults don’t read this kind of stuff for information. Feel free to write in one volume, for instance,

“Richard Henry Pratt started Carlisle School, as well as Hampton Institute,”

and in another,

“Former Civil War Brigadier General Samuel Chapman Armstrong founded [Hampton Institute].”

2. Whenever you can, describe Indians in the past tense and be sure to portray their lives so as to make them appear exotic. A good example:

“[The Karankawa] were tall people who lived in small huts, traveled in canoes and hunted with bows and arrows. They wore tattoos and used animal fat to protect themselves from mosquitoes.”

Another good example:

“Pomo men were often naked and the women wore deerskin shirts and kilts.”

Yet another good example:

“[Apalachee] men painted their bodies before battle and scalped their enemies.”

3. It’s perfectly OK to get the details wrong. No one will notice. A good example:

“[The Potawatomi] hunted, farmed, and collected syrup from maple trees.”

Another good example:

“Main foods [of the Illinois] included bison, deer, fish, maple sap…”

Yet another good example:

“[The Ojibwe] flavored their foods with maple syrup, which they harvested in the spring.”

4. Whenever possible, use the term “warriors” as a synonym for “Indians.” A good example:

“[The] Haida made sea journeys in huge boats carved from the massive trunks of red cedar trees. These boats could hold up to 60 warriors.”

5. Make sure to state and restate the obvious so that children will come to think that universal implements and activities have a special meaning for Indians. A good example:

“Knives had many uses for Native Americans.”

Another good example:

“Different colors and symbols mean different things to different dancers.”

Yet another good example:

“Native Americans have a rich history of fun and challenging recreational activities.”

6. Feel free to invent cultural reasons for occurrences about which you don’t know enough to describe realistically. A good example:

“Newborn Lakota boys received an elk’s tooth to bring them a long life, since the tooth of a dead elk is the last part to rot away.”

7. Make sure to write in a way that will encourage the “eeeyyyuuu” response from children. A good example:

“[The Paiute] ate roots, lizards, grubs, and insects throughout the year.”

Another good example:

“[California Indians] collected berries, other nuts, seeds, roots, and insects like caterpillars and grasshoppers.”

8. If you’re not sure whether a particular practice actually occurred, feel free to equivocate. Children will interpret inexplicit statements as fact. A good example:

“[The Calusa] also may have practiced human sacrifice and a form of cannibalism.”

9. Describe the little you’ve read about Indian belief systems in a way that presents Indian peoples as superstitious. A good example:

“The early Zapotecs believed that they came from trees, rocks, and jaguars that turned into people.”

Another good example:

“[The Mandan] believed that their ancestors came from under the earth, and climbed out on a grapevine.”

10. If you can, describe Native leaders as having made decisions motivated solely by alcohol. A good example:

“The Apache leader, Geronimo, was so fond of tiswin that he and his followers left their reservation in eastern Arizona because brewing tiswin was illegal there. They attempted to return to their homeland where they could once more drink tiswin. However, U.S. soldiers arrested them and returned them to the reservation.”

11. Whenever possible, describe Native peoples and settlers as getting along really well together. A good example:

“The Wampanoag and Pilgrims feasted together to cement the bonds of their friendship and express joy in the success of the Pilgrim’s [sic] first crop.”

12. And never, ever use the word “rape.” A good example:

“[A]fter a French trader mistreated Red Shoes’s [sic] wife, Red Shoes switched his allegiance to the English.”

Another good example:

“[The] Pyramid Lake War erupted on the California Trail in 1860 between the Northern Paiute and traders who stole and mistreated two Northern Paiute girls.”

13. Describe both sides as benefiting equally from treaties. A good example:

“Through [the Doak’s Stand Treaty], the Choctaw gave the United States more than five million acres of their fertile land in exchange for undeveloped land west of the Mississippi. This totaled one-third of their territory.”

14. Or, you may describe treaties as voluntary giveaways of land. A good example:

“In 1855, Seattle and other area tribal leaders signed the Point Elliott Treaty, giving away most of their lands. The treaty allowed them to hunt and fish on their former homelands.”

15. Make sure that your writing gives the appearance of neutrality. A good example:

“In the 1800s, struggles with trappers, traders, miners, and Mormon settlers led to the Shoshone War.”

16. At the same time, give children an understanding of why warfare with the Indians was justified. A good example:

“In the early 1860s, Great Basin Indians, including the Shoshone, interfered with mule trains, the Pony Express, railroad workers, telegraph lines, and stagecoach runs.”

17. Remember the old adage, “History is written by the victor,” so you can write with a clear conscience. A good example:

“[The Klickitat] land was in the path of U.S. settlers. The Klickitat refused to sign treaties that gave away most of their land to the United States. As a result, in 1855, the United States went to war with the Klickitat. The Klickitat surrendered and released their lands to the United States.”

Another good example:

“Seminole Wars occurred in the 1800s when American troops fought for Seminole removal from today’s Florida. Plantation owners saw the Seminole as a threat for taking in their escaped slaves and living near an important river trade route.”

18. Always find ways to blame Native peoples for their own suffering and eventual demise. A good example:

“The Plains tribes came to depend so much on hunting bison that it became a point of weakness. In the mid-1800s, when soldiers, western settlers, and native [sic] peoples hunted bison to near extinction, many tribes suffered.”

19. Sanitize historical events so as not to traumatize child readers with bloody details.
A good example:

“In 1775, [the Diegueño] rejected Spanish control, but the Spanish had better weapons and remained in charge. Today, they live among 12 different reservations.”

20. However, you can relieve boredom with an occasional really gory passage. A good example:

“Along their journeys, the explorers entered Native towns, stealing food and taking slaves. They killed the Native Americans who refused slavery by either stabbing or burning them to death, or feeding them to large Spanish dogs.”

21. If you have to describe an inexcusable event, find a way to excuse it. A good example:

“[Little Crow] was shot in the back while picking raspberries with his son in 1863. His body was then mutilated by angry settlers for his participation in the Dakota War.”

22. Be sure to pepper the volumes with pejorative terminology and descriptions, such as “hut” rather than home, “nomadic” rather than traveling between territories, “hunting and gathering” rather than living off the bounty of land, and “tribal members” rather than citizens of a particular nation.

23. Show how American standards of success did not apply to Indians. A good example:

“Native Americans did not make good slaves. Male slaves saw farming as women’s work.”

24. Emphasize hard-to-pronounce words and phrases relevant to the study of Native Americans. Good examples:

“corn husks (KORN-husks),” “civilize (SIH-vuh-lize),” “kidney stones (KID-nee STONEZ),” “exhaustion (ed-ZAWST-shun),” “total warfare” (TOH-tuhl WOR-fair), “human sacrifice” (HEW-muhn SAK-ruh-fyes), “exclusive” (eks-CLOO-sihv), and, of course, “casinos (kah-SEE-nohz).”

Leave out terms such as “Manifest Destiny,” “land theft,” and “sovereignty,” because they’re controversial.

25. And finally, ensure that children will come away knowing exactly why climate change is responsible for the disappearance of Native American peoples. A good example:

“Surviving the icy climate and whale hunting is the basis of traditional Inuit culture.”