Established in 2006 by Dr. Debbie Reese of Nambé Pueblo, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books. Dr. Jean Mendoza joined AICL as a co-editor in 2016.
While any person might do any of those things for one reason or another, those words are not what took place in the Senate Gallery yesterday. Something happened when the Senate voted down the Keystone pipeline bill.
Greg Grey Cloud sang a song.
Grey Cloud is an enrolled member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe and co-founder of Wica Agli, an organization dedicated to helping men and boys create communities that value self, family, and community. That work includes protesting the Keystone pipeline, and that is why Greg Grey Cloud was in the Senate gallery yesterday. The bill being voted down marked a victory for the protest work he and Native people have been doing.
So Greg Grey Cloud sang a song, but the three news media I noted at the top of this post didn't call it a song. The first news source I read about the vote was Mediaite. Initially, their headline was "Native American Chant Interrupts Senate as Keystone Vote Fails." The word "chant" bothered me and I set about to create a graphic that corrected the use of "chant." As I did that, a colleague said it was a Victory song, so I added that to the correction I made. This is what I came up with (it needed another correction, as you'll see later):
This morning, I saw that CNN called it wailing:
And, I saw that the AP reporter used "yowls" in the final paragraph of her report:
In getting this blog post ready, I went back to the Mediate article and saw that they had changed the wording in their headline. The new one is on the left. My edited one is on the right. I am glad they changed their headline, and I imagine that those involved in that change will not make that mistake again!
As it turns out, my corrections needed a correction, too! In an interview today, Grey Cloud said he was overcome with joy at the outcome of the vote:
I looked down and thought we need to honor these Senators for having the courage to make the right decision, for not only Indian country but for America as a whole. As a singer, I know only one way to honor someone, and that’s to sing. I didn’t mean to disrupt the Senate, only to honor the conviction shown by the Senators.
Grey Cloud was singing in his language. Here's the Lakota words, and the English translation (provided to Grey Cloud by Pat Bad Hand Sr., of the Sicangu Oyate. Grey Cloud stated that Mr. Bad Hand is a renowned hoka wicasa (keeper of songs):
Lakota language for Unci Maka Olowan song: “Tunkasila wamayanka yo, le miye ca tehiya nawazin yelo. unci maka nawacincina wowahwala wa yuha waun welo”
English translation Grandmother Earth song:“Grandfather look at me, I am standing here struggling, I am defending grandmother earth and I am chasing peace.”
And here's the video of that moment in the Senate:
Though that language and style of singing may be unfamiliar to most people, the words in the song are ones spoken by a people who is Indigenous to this land, and whose culture has been misrepresented and marginalized so much that those three reporters, and perhaps most of the people there, did not recognize it for what it is.
That has to change. That means replacing books that misrepresent Native peoples with books that don't have problems of misrepresentation. Please let go of those classics. They have not served us well. Choose, instead, books that present all peoples as people. Start with the books on AICL's Best Books list.
Pukawiss the Outcast by Jay Jordan Hawke is an unusual book. The protagonist--Joshua--is a 14 year old teen who is gay. Because his mother is a fundamentalist Christian, he has not shared that identity with anyone. The story is set in the June of 1999, when President Clinton issued a proclamation naming June as Gay and Lesbian Pride month.
What makes the book unusual is not that he is gay, but that Joshua is Native.
Joshua's mother is white, and his father is Ojibwe. They met when his mother went to his father's reservation to do missionary work. They fell in love, but she was sure he was going to hell for his Ojibwe beliefs. He had to choose between her and his Ojibwe identity. He chose her, but struggled with that choice. He eventually became an alcoholic.
Joshua wasn't raised Ojibwe, nor did he visit the reservation, which is an hour from his mom and dad's house.
But when his dad leaves and his mom needs time to sort things out, she drops him off at the home of "Gentle Eagle" -- his grandfather -- on the reservation.
Joshua meets several teens who work at Wiigwaas, a recreated village Gentle Eagle established to help the Ojibwe people remember and learn their heritage.
Among the teens who work at the village are "Mokwa" and "Little Deer." Mokwa means angry bear, we're told in the book. Information shared about the names of the characters follows pop culture ideas about how Native names are given. Pop culture, I hasten to add, that doesn't reflect how Native names are given. "Gentle Eagle" is a gentle elder who everyone turns to for guidance. "Mokwa" is called that because he fought some older boys who were bullying "Little Deer" who is quiet and skittish. Later in the book is a new character, Black Crow, who is a loud-mouthed bully.
Naming figures prominently in the story. Joshua wants an Indian name. He's got a crush on Mokwa, who he hangs out with a lot at the village. Mokwa gives him a nickname: Pukawiss.
According to Mokwa, Pukawiss is a manitou who was an outcast because he didn't do what was expected of him (hunt and fish). Instead, he watched animals and mimicked their movements. His mimicry gave birth to "the art of dancing." He also gave the people Fancy Dance and powwows. The latter is definitely not accurate. Both are contemporary or modern in nature, rather than traditional ceremonies/dances that have been done for a very long time.
Later, Mokwa tells Joshua that he thinks Pukawiss was gay because when he went from village to village teaching the dances, women threw themselves at him and he ignored them. And, because he "loved bright-colored clothing." Mokwa's says "I think he was gay. It makes sense to me." Those two sentences function as a disclaimer, I think, for what the author is telling us via Mokwa.
I haven't found anything from Ojibwe writers or scholars that says Pukawiss was gay. It seems to me that the author--an outsider to Ojibwe culture--is putting this interpretation onto Pukawiss. I find that rather troubling, given that the author is not Native. He is also using markers (colored clothing) that fits in the framework of gay-people-as-flamboyant that Malinda Lo notes as a mixed blessing in terms of characters who are portrayed that way.
There are other problems... Mokwa does the Fancy Dance at powwows. He's taught Joshua how to do that dance. Joshua practices it and does it at the village for the tourists. Near the end of the book they all go to a powwow at Bay Mills where Mokwa is competing. During the dance, Mokwa sprains his ankle. He finishes the dance well enough to be selected as a finalist who has to dance again. He tells Joshua to take his place. He quickly takes off all his regalia and Joshua puts it on. That doesn't sound plausible. Regalia doesn't go on and off quickly. There's a lot of parts, each one requiring care in terms of the item itself but also regarding how it is put on.
Joshua is worried everyone will know he isn't Mokwa because he is shorter than Mokwa, but Mokwa thinks nobody will notice. They grab a porcupine roach and put it on Joshua to hide the fact that he doesn't have a Mohawk haircut like Mokwa does. Off he goes to dance, and, nobody notices the substitution. I found that switcheroo troubling, and, taking of the roach, too. That sort of thing just isn't done.
Another point that didn't ring true for me was the use of the word "chanting" to describe the drumming and singing. There's a lot more in my notes but I think I'll stop and say this:
I wish Hawke's book didn't have these problems. We need books about Native youth who are gay. Though a gay identity is shown as positive in this book, that positive note is greatly overshadowed by the amount of misinformation about Ojibwe people that is in this book.
Within children's and young adult literature, a book like this is about intersections of two or more identities. We need those books, but it is unacceptable for one identity to be misrepresented. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend Pukawiss the Outcast. It was published in 2014 by Harmony Ink Press.
Note: November 17, 4:45
There is a great deal of LGBTQ writing in Native Studies. A recent book is Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature, edited by Qwo-Li Driskill, Daniel Justice, Deborah Miranda, and Lisa Tatonetti.
This is a long overdue post. Some time back--years maybe--I saw an online encyclopedia called "Native American Encyclopedia." It is on Twitter, and Instagram, and no telling where else, but if you start looking carefully---and by that I mean critically---at the content, its legitimacy goes downhill fast.
Who curates the content? Posts have personal names, like Carol, or Alice, but no last names. Who are they? What is Carol's expertise? What is Alice's expertise?
The "About" page uses "our" elders, etc., which suggests that the curators are Native. It even says that it is "Native owned and operated" but who are the Native people that own and operate it?
In a tweet earlier today, I said I thought perhaps the curator is a robot because there is SO MUCH on the site! Check out a page. You pick the page.
Maybe the "Native American Zodiac" page. Wait. Native American zodiac?! As if all 500+ tribes are the same and have a zodiac that we all use?!
Or maybe the page about naming, that tells you a naming ritual starts with "Harken!" As if Native people use words like "harken" in our rituals.
Or maybe the page about Cherokee, that is full of past tense verbs. As if the Cherokee don't exist anymore?
If you're a regular reader of American Indians in Children's Literature, you know that I recommend you visit websites of Native Nations. On this bogus Native American Encyclopedia site, the source of info on the Cherokee people is a website called "The Wild West." Not ok!
What page did you choose? Are you looking at it now? On the page you've chosen, scroll down to the bottom to see what it says about its source. The sources are definitely questionable. The one for the owl of the zodiac, for example, tells us the source is "xtraastrology." Let's pause there. Are you a teacher? A librarian? A parent? You know that source matters, right?
Scroll down a bit more. See those tiny grayed out words that say "Based on the collective work of NativeAmericanEncyclopedia.com" that are followed by the copyright symbol, saying that Native American Encyclopedia holds the copyright for the page? I wonder if The Wild West site is ok with the Native American Encyclopedia copyrighting their content?
Two big indicators that the people who create and use that site are pretty misinformed about who Native peoples are... First, the site administrator has a sidebar that lists the pages that have been "favourited" a lot. See the spelling of favorite? With that u? That's how it is spelled in Europe. Does that tell us that the curators for the site are in Europe?! And second, the page most often favourited is the zodiac one. Selecting that page reveals the ignorance of the person choosing it as a favorite!
Please don't use this site, and if you're interested in information about Native Nations, tell others not to use the site either. Tell them why, too. And then, look for the website of a specific nation. Use Lisa Mitten's page, Native Nations, to find one. She is a mixed-blood Native who was president of the American Indian Library Association. Or, look at a credible site, with experts. A good place to start is the National Museum of the American Indian.
Good information is available. Don't be duped by sites like "The Native American Encyclopedia." Skip it.
A few years ago, Oyate had a list of books about Thanksgiving that they did not recommend. The list was on their website.
Given the number of books that are published every year about that holiday and the ways that Native peoples continue to be misrepresented in children's books, you would be right to guess that their list is long.
That list is not at their website any longer. In a redesign a few years ago they decided to remove it and their Books to Avoid section. They decided that, although a list might seem efficient, it didn't give people the critical thinking skills they need to develop in order to make decisions on their own. I agree--I'd prefer people develop those skills and apply them their selection/deselection activities.
On the other hand, teachers use lists of good books all the time. Generally speaking, they assume that the person who put that list together has the expertise necessary such that their evaluations can be trusted.
I personally have not read all of these books, but I definitely learned a great deal from Oyate's work. I strongly encourage teachers and librarians to get materials published by Oyate.
My guess is that I'd concur with their decision about each of these books, and I'd also guess that any given book on the list got there because it put forth one or more of what Judy Dow and Beverly Slapin called myths in their Deconstructing the Myths of the First Thanksgiving. If one of these books is on your shelf and you're considering weeding it, I recommend you read it and Dow and Slapin's essay and then make a decision.
I've also shared Oyate's list of recommended books here. And, for more books that accurately portray Native people, see my page of Best Books. (Note: the first sentence of his paragraph was not visible enough. Two people submitted comments asking for recommended books. To help it be more visible, I made it a separate paragraph in bold and added the sentence/link to best books to supplement Oyate's list.)
Dow and Slapin's piece on Thanksgiving myths is also in the outstanding resource A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children (published in 2005), as are many (all?) of the in-depth critical reviews that were on Oyate's page of Books to Avoid. Get A Broken Flute, and Through Indian Eyes: The Native Experience in Books for Children (published in 1987 and again in 2006), too. Both are vitally important for all that they contain. (Note: I added this paragraph soon after hitting the upload button on this post, and I added Slapin's name as a co-author. My apologies to her for the initial omission.)
Own your knowledge. Own your decisions.
Oyate's list of NOT RECOMMENDED books about Thanksgiving
Accorsi, William. Friendship's First Thanksgiving. Holiday House, 1992.
Aliki. Corn is Maize: The Gift of the Indians. Harper & Row, 1976.
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving. Simon & Schuster, 2002.
Ansary, Mir Tamim. Thanksgiving Day. Heinemann, 2002.
Apel, Melanie Ann. The Pilgrims. Kidhaven Press, 2003.
Bartlett, Robert Merrill, The Story of Thanksgiving. HarperCollins, 2001.
Barth, Edna. Turkeys, Pilgrims, and Indian Corn: The Story of Thanksgiving Symbols. Clarion, 1975.
Are you on Twitter? What are you doing a week from today? I'm asking, because...
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
9:00 PM Eastern Time
Allie Jane Bruce
and me (Debbie Reese)
Will host a Twitter Chat
Join Us!
#SupportWNDB
I did a post for the We Need Diverse Books page. Below is a screen capture. Please go read it. It has the kind of info that I want to feature in the chat next week. Allie Jane Bruce, by the way, is the kind of librarian that I wish was in every library, every school, around the world. Yes. The world.
Anton Treuer's Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask is one of the books I think every teacher ought to have on her shelf, and that every library ought to have, too, in multiple copies.
Published in 2012 by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, the information in Treuer's book is presented in a question/answer format. If you've already got Do All Indians Live in Tipisfrom the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), add this one to your shopping cart or order form right away. Though there is some overlap (both, for example, discuss use of "American Indian" versus "Native American"), there are definitely a lot of things that are not in the NMAI book, and, because Treuer is Ojibwe, we get more depth on that nation, in particular.
The contents of the book are in question/answer format, with the questions ones that Treuer is asked in lectures and workshops. He's the executive director of the American Indian Resource Center at Bemidji State in Minnesota.
Here's the table of contents:
Introduction: Ambassador
Terminology
History
Religion, Culture & Identity
Powwow
Tribal Languages
Politics
Economics
Education
Perspectives: Coming to Terms and Future Directions
Conclusion: Finding Ways to Make a Difference
Some highlights:
In History, Treuer addresses the land bridge theory of the continent's first inhabitants by pointing to new research of archeological sites that forces us to reconsider that theory. He also answers the oft-posed question "why does it matter" when Indians got here. He says that the question itself is one whose subtext is that everyone is immigrant to this continent, and as such, is an attempt to undermine Native Nations.
In Perspectives, Treur takes on the "my great grandmother was a Cherokee princess" statement that so many of us hear. He does the usual rebuttal that royalty is not part of Cherokee societal structure, but he also says this:
If your great-grandmother was Cherokee, then one of your grandparents was too, and one of your parents, and in actuality you are Cherokee as well. Someone who truly identifies with his or her native ancestry will say, "I am Cherokee."
He goes on to say that the "my great grandmother" statement, though well-intended, demonstrates a level of ignorance about Cherokee history and culture, and posits that those who have actually investigated that family story and Cherokee culture would come away saying "I'm Cherokee" (if the story is legitimized) and would abandon the "princess" claim because it is not valid.
In the Conclusion, Treuer writes about a grassroots effort amongst local businessmen in Bemidji to add Ojibwe words to their signage. A simple action, it brings visibility to a people and their language that is rare. And, it welcomes Ojibwe people in ways that affirm who they are. Here's a photo from the book, showing the signage at the hospital:
If you want to make your classroom, school, or library more welcoming to Native peoples, signage is a good option. A couple of years ago, I pointed to a number of resources you can turn to do that.
If you've got a choice, I encourage you to get Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask from an independent bookstore like Birchbark Books.
I like Treuer's book. He writes directly and conveys nuances to, amongst the 500+ federally recognized tribal nations. I highly recommend you add it to your collections.
In the opening chapter of Eric Gansworth's If I Ever Get Our Of Here (2013, Arthur A. Levine Books), the main character, Lewis, is walking home. The time of year is August. Lewis lives on the Tuscarora Reservation. Here's what Lewis is thinking:
As I turned the corner at Dog Street, where I lived, I could see my old elementary school. The teachers would be in their classrooms now, decorating bulletin boards with WELCOME TO THE 1975-1976 SCHOOL YEAR! in big construction-paper letters. They were going to be puzzled by the fact that the United States Bicentennial Celebration wasn't exactly a reservation priority, since we'd been here for a lot longer than two hundred years.
That puzzlement is what today's post is about. Lewis's people identify with a tribal nation that has been here far longer than the nation we know as the United States of America. I think it fair to say that the US marks two moments of historical significance. One is its independence on July 4, 1776. But Independence Day is preceded by "the first Thanksgiving" in 1621. (Set aside time to read and study What Really Happened at the First Thanksgiving: The Wampanoag Side of the Tale.)
In schools across the country, Native peoples appear in the curriculum at specific times of the year. Like this month. November. Thanksgiving.
Coincidentally (?), November is Native American Month. I suspect November may have been chosen because that is the month when the US celebrates Thanksgiving. As such, I think it seemed (to someone) to be the ideal month for Americans to "reflect on the profound ways the First Americans have shaped our country's character and culture." That phrase is in the opening line of President Obama's 2014 Presidential Proclamation designating this as National Native American Heritage Month. The first president to proclaim November as Native American Month was George H. W. Bush, in 1990 (see the full list of proclamations here).
People mean well. They have good intentions. But even President Obama's opening remark indicates a framework that doesn't work. Are Native peoples "the First Americans?" I know a good many Native people who would say they're citizens of their tribal nation first and foremost, and I've read that Native leaders who fought the U.S. in the 1800s wouldn't call themselves Americans at all.
A fact:
Native Nations pre-date the
United States and all its holidays.
Our timelines, in other words, don't start at 1621 or 1776, or the year at which any given state in the US celebrates its statehood.
President Obama is right. Native peoples did shape the country's character and culture. Watch this video from Vision Maker Media. It has terrific information about how the Founding Fathers were guided by, and turned to, the Haudenosaunee.
So here we are, a few weeks away from Thanksgiving, in a month designated as one in which US citizens are invited to "work to build a world where all people are valued and no child ever has to wonder if he or she has a place in our society." That is another phrase in President Obama's proclamation. In it, he also talks about sovereignty.
I want librarians, teachers, parents, writers... everyone, really, to move away from talking about Native peoples in the past tense context of Thanksgiving. I want everyone to move away from talking about us only in November.
Buy and share the books I recommend below year-round. Doing that conveys the respect and inclusion that everyone in the U.S. should have as a given. Not an exception, but as a given. Gansworth's If I Ever Get Out of Here and the ones I discuss below are among my favorite books.
Every people has a creation story. Not every person within a group believes in those creation stories, but I think most people respect those stories and the people who hold them as truths.
Simon J. Ortiz's The People Shall Continue starts with Native creation stories (plural because there are over 500 federally recognized Native Nations in the U.S., with tremendous difference in language, location, spirituality, and material culture) and moves through contact with Europeans, wars, treaties, capitalism, and the need for peoples to unite against forces that can destroy the humanity in all of us. Published in 1977, 1988 and again in 1994 by Children's Book Press, this picture book is no longer in print. Used copies, however, are available online, and I highly recommend it for children and adults, too. It offers a lot to think about. Ortiz is a member of Acoma Pueblo, in New Mexico.
Believe it or not, a lot of people express surprise to learn that we are still here. People think we were all killed or died of disease... gone from the face of the earth. Some people think we are still here, but that to be "real" Indians, we have to live like we did hundreds of years ago.
Picture books like Cynthia Leitich Smith's Jingle Dancer (2000, Morrow Junior Books)push against those ideas. The protagonist is Jenna, a Muscogee Creek girl who is going to do the Jingle Dance for the first time at an upcoming powwow. The story of Jenna getting ready reflects what happens in Native communities when a young child is going to dance for the first time. Everyone helps. The cover shows Jenna at the powwow. Inside you'll find her walking down a tree-lined street as she visits friends and family members. At one point she feels a bit overwhelmed at all the work she needs to do to be ready, but her Great Aunt Sis tells her a traditional story about not giving up. Smith is enrolled with the Muscogee Creek Nation.
Native spiritualities are misrepresented as pagan and mystic, and rather than seen as religions with their own integrity, are cast as superstitions of primitive people.
Tim Tingle's How I Became A Ghost (2013, RoadRunner Press) bats down those two ideas beautifully. His middle-grade novel opens with these words on the first page: "Chapter 1: Talking Ghost, Choctaw Nation, Mississippi, 1830." Bam! Spirituality is there from the start. Not in a mystic way. It is an IS. A matter of fact. And nationhood, too! Right from the start.
This is a story about the Choctaw Trail of Tears, told from the vantage point of Isaac, a ten year old boy. Given its topic, it could be a very raw story, but Tingle's storytelling voice and humor (yes, humor) keep the focus of the story on the humanity of all the people involved. Tingle is enrolled with the Choctaw Nation and is working on a sequel to How I Became A Ghost.
I'll close with a board book that features a Native language. In the U.S. and Canada, government policy was to 'kill the Indian and save the man' in boarding schools run by churches or by the government. Kids were forced to attend those boarding schools (starting in the 1800s) and were punished and beaten for speaking their own languages. The direct result was that many Native languages were lost. Today there are language revitalization programs in which elders who still speak their language are teaching it. In some places, language remained strong.
We All Count (2014, Native Northwest) is a board book for toddlers who are learning to count in English, but in Cree, too. Written and illustrated by Julie Flett, who is Cree Metis (First Nations in Canada), each page is beautifully illustrated, with the Cree word for each numeral written in a large font that complements the page itself.
Get those books! Order them from your local bookstore, and ask your librarian to get them, too. There are a great many that I could write about here, but instead, I'll direct you to my page of links to Best Books lists. Check out my gallery of Native Artists and Illustrators, too. Learn their names. Look for their books. And if you want to learn a bit more about sovereignty, read We Are Not People of Color.
Will we ever get to the point in time where creators of children's books stop showing kids playing Indian at Thanksgiving?!
Here's the cover of Pinkalicious: Thanksgiving Helper. In the story, Pinkalicious invites her brother to "pretend it's the first Thanksgiving." She puts on a pink feather and will be Princess Pink Feather (cue moans, groans, and lots of eye rolling). I guess Kann and her publisher and all the people who buy and read/review the book do not know that playing Indian--or Indian princess--is stereotyping of the worst kind, because it seems harmless and innocent and, to quote some of the reviews "cute!". It isn't harmless or innocent or cute. It is stereotyping and ought not be happening in a book published in 2014 by HarperFestival.
Pinkalicious: Thanksgiving Helper is not recommended.
Shuck, Kim (Tsalagi, Sauk/Fox, Polish), Rabbit Stories. Poetic Matrix Press,
2013, high school-up
Rabbit (the Being) has awesome responsibilities. He
weighs and measures leaves so they can exist. He sings to bring the flowers
into bloom. He dances to turn the seasons. He cradles subatomic particles and
powwow dancers in his sight—whispers, “beautiful, happy”—and they dance, dance,
dance, dance. All these things (and more) he has been given to do, else the
world—or at least this corner of the
cosmos—will get bent. No small feats and no small responsibilities, those. Rabbit
is also a mentor (in his magical way) to Rabbit Food, the human girl he’s named
for a wild rose, the human girl he brings to maturity as a smart, loving,
responsible, talented Indian woman; a quantum physicist who knows who she is
and what she comes from. Under Rabbit’s auspices (and, of course, those of her Aunties
and Grandmas), Rabbit Food is a “child of multiple cultures, of Tsalagi and
Polish and fantasy and sci-fi, she knows that around any corner there may be a
paradigm shift… (And) she will be prepared if stuck in an alternate reality.”
The two—(or three if you count the polyvalent
reality of Robin and Fox)—trickster-mentor and quantum physicist, naturally
acknowledge each other without actually speaking or touching. Since Rabbit Food
was a child, it has never occurred to her to mention him to anyone. Rather, she
tosses him a cookie now and then, or lets the cilantro stolen from the fridge
go unnoticed, or hides a cashew where he will find it, and she “keeps learning
the things she needs.” And Rabbit “loves Rabbit Food, loves her…with the
completeness that only someone thoroughly self-absorbed can achieve, and only
then for small moments.”
The stories—of Rabbit Food’s lifetime as girl,
young woman, new mother and mature artist, and, of course, ever the student of
trickster-cum-life coach Rabbit—weave up, down, around and through. They’re brilliantly crafted and lovingly
told, semi-autobiographical stories that take
place in parallel worlds full of spirit and magic and wonder and grace; intertwined like the tight stitches of a
Tsalagi double-woven basket.
Indian students
will appreciate these stories for their many cultural and historical references,
their nuances and word plays, their multiple layers of dream and memory, and
their fast-paced, wise cracking humor—everything that makes Rabbit Stories Indian. They will also probably
appreciate that the author did not,
as non-Native authors often do with “Indian” material, turn the stories into
mind-numbing ethnographic expositions. Students who are from outside the
community may not “get” everything, but will appreciate the stories as well. I
encourage teachers to allow these appealing stories to resonate with their
students and not to ruin the experience by attempting to analyze or interpret them.
Rabbit Stories, as is Kim’s first
book of poetry, Smuggling Cherokee,
is amazing; and Kim—an accomplished artist and master storyteller, poet, and
educator—is an international treasure. Not one eagle feather dropped here, no
pickup dance necessary.
Editor's Note: Kim Shuck and Beverly Slapin submitted this satirical "how to" piece in response to my review of Neal Shusterman and Michelle Knowlden's short story, Unstrung. Shusterman responded to that review (see point 13 below). I am currently working on a review of the first three books in Shusterman's series.
HOW TO WRITE A DYSTOPIAN YOUNG ADULT NOVEL (or short story)
WITH NATIVE CHARACTERS FOR FUN AND PROFIT
by Kim Shuck and Beverly Slapin
Strive to know nothing about the real lives and
histories of Native peoples. Knowing is counterproductive and can be used
against you if you accidentally let something real slip in. Do
not do any research at all.
That way, your tribe will be a genuine object of your invention, and no one
will be able to accuse you of cultural appropriation.
Invent a tribe. Give
it a name that sounds kind of sort of like an Indian word. Or forget it—don’t
give your tribe an actual name. Rather, refer to your tribe in a way that
relates to a well-known stereotype. “People of Chance,” as an example, works
well, because it will remind readers of casinos and how wealthy Indian people
are. If you’re a little unsure, feel free to work in a backstory about gaming
and skilled tribal lawyers.
Write as though your invented tribe is just like any
other transplanted culture with the exception of periodic decorative localized
mythology. There should be no long memory stories of things that have happened
where your tribe lives. Rather, for instance, you might go on and on about your
tribe’s ostentatious show of material wealth—curbs that “gleam with gold,” an abundance of luxury cars, “gold plaques embedded in the adobe walls” and everyone wearing business suits “finer
than the best designer fashions.”
Assign at least
some of your tribal characters names that sound vaguely “Indian.” To do that,
make sure that the names contain lots of vowels; something like “Chowilawu” might be a good example. Don’t worry that someone might think
the names of your Indian characters mean something. They don’t have to—they’re
Indian.
Describe your tribal characters as having small but
important Indian mannerisms. For example, make sure that at least one of your
Indian characters sits cross-legged on an animal skin. That will remind readers
of the good times in kindergarten when they were instructed to sit “Indian
style” for long periods of time.
Make sure that
the main character (preferably white and male) bonds with a member of your
invented culture. Your Indian character need not be developed in any sense,
because his only purpose is to teach your main character a major life lesson,
after which he expires or goes back to whatever mystical land he comes from.
Feel free to use this Native mentor in the style of any of the old tropes: Black nanny, Asian martial arts master, or supernaturally animated
Indian doll who lives in a cupboard.
Create new racial slurs to take the place of
discredited old ones. “Redskins,” for instance, would be totally last century
for a dystopian story. Try something like “slot monger,” or something else that
you can make sound vaguely sexual, yet have a backstory that creates
deniability.
Put the power in the hands of your invented
culture. Make sure that some of the members of your tribe express xenophobic
opinions, such as referring to other tribes as “Low-Rez.” This will make the
point that xenophobia is logical when it exists in empowered communities.
Because there is no cultural attribution, feel
free to use whatever stereotype or debunked expectation you may envision. It’s
totally appropriate in this case to evoke offensively weird stories as long as you
don’t name your tribe. For instance, you can have characters in your tribe
hunting for a male mountain lion in order to transplant his heart into a dying
Native elder for whom this animal is his “spirit guide.”
Make sure to work in tropes that are pseudo-spiritual-cultural
givens for your tribe: spirit animals and vision quests, for instance. And,
above all, make sure that your main Native character, despite—or because of—his
otherworldly psychic gifts, gets killed off.
Now, take out your checklist. Invented tribe—check.
No real reference to land, language, culture, community–check. No history or
memory stories—check. No Indigenous meaning to names or anything else—check.
Stereotypical mannerisms—check. Trope-type mentor—check. New racial slur to
replace old ones—check. Xenophobic power—check. Offensively weird
rituals—check. More tropes—check. Main Native character gets killed off—check.
Done! Now sit back and collect your starred reviews
for creating a multicultural dystopian novel with mystical Indian characters
whose only raison d’etre is to interact with a white hero in a mentor role
worthy of inclusion in a 1950s flick.
On the off chance that you are criticized for
inaccuracy, cultural appropriation, racism, or just plain abysmal writing, make sure to respondimmediately—preferably
with a vague reference to political correctness, reverse racism and/or the
humorless nature of the critic. Mention how sensitive you tried to be. Use the
phrase “considered carefully” to insure that everyone understands how hard you
worked at appropriate representation. You can always fall back on the fact that
you invented your tribe and therefore are immune to criticism, but it is worth
trying to put the reviewer on the defensive—especially if the reviewer happens
to be Native and has worked in the area of American Indians in children’s
literature for many years.
—Kim Shuck and Beverly Slapin
(We would like to acknowledge Neal Shusterman and Michelle Knowlden—and the
many other authors of “children’s books about Indians” [you know who you
are]—without whose important research and writing these helpful hints would not
have been possible. Wado, y’all!)
.jpg)
