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!)
One of the things I love to see in a picture book about Indigenous peoples is a visual that puts the story and its teller in the present day. Virginia A. Stroud's Doesn't Fall Off His Horse does that beautifully.
The first page from Stroud's book is to the right. See the little girl? See the wallpaper on the walls? See the glass windows in the house?
To a good many of you it might sound ridiculous to point out those things, but there are so many people who think Native peoples are long gone, or if we're still here, that we live exactly like we did several hundred years ago. Some even think that if we do NOT still live that way, that we can't be "real" anymore, as if being Native is about material culture and nothing else.
We're far more than that, of course. Every culture or nation or ethnicity is more than its material culture. Stories, for example, are an unseen part of a people's culture.
In Doesn't Fall Off His Horse, Stroud tells us a story about her grandfather. Specifically, it is a story about how he got his name.
The little girl is called Saygee. There's a glossary that tells us Saygee is a Kiowa word that means youngest one, or, little one. She wants him to tell her a story,
"but which one? He was like a living book; nearly a hundred years had passed under his footsteps during his walk upon the earth. He had followed the buffalo, he had roamed the open plains with tepee and lodge poles, he'd seen the non-Indian wagons come to Indian Territory and watched from a hilltop as the settlers staked out the land. He saw one of the first locomotives cut across the prairie, then an automobile, and an airplane; he had received the citizenship given to the Native American people."
Sensing she wants a story, he says "Doesn't Fall Off His Horse." Saygee asks him who doesn't fall off his horse, and he says "Me." and "That's my Indian name." From there, he begins this thrilling story. In its telling, we learn that he is Kiowa. I chose that excerpt (above) quite deliberately. Another thing I look for in a children's book is a way of telling that sounds like the people I know. I don't know any Native elder--or any Native person, in fact--who calls a train an "iron horse." I've seen non-Native writers put that phrase in the mouths of their characters, or, in their stories, but I don't think it originates with any particular Native people.
I highly recommend Doesn't Fall Off His Horse. First published in 1994 by Dial Books for Young Readers, it is also available in ebook format.
Sheesh. The activities that let people figure out what their Indian name is, or what their spirit animal is, are so freaking bogus!
So many assumptions and ignorance go into their making. Let's look at WHAT IS YOUR SPIRIT ANIMAL, created by Brieanna Watts Elmore (if that is a real name/person) at Buzzfeed.
It assumes, for starters, that we are monolithic, that no matter where our homeland might be, we think the same way about salmon. And buffalo. And wolves. Fact? We don't. We're over 500 distinct nations, located across the US.
We don't speak the same language. Our traditional clothing differs. And so do our spiritual beliefs!
Some of us have clans associated with animals but not all of us, and, frankly, I know a lot of Native people from a lot of different Native Nations, and nobody has ever said to me "my spirit animal is..."
I think that "spirit animal" thing is the White Man's Indian.
But gosh darn! So many people (who don't know better) love love love the White Man's Indian.
It is in a lot of children's and young adult books. Case in point? Neal Shusterman's Unwind dystology. I'm (grudgingly) reading Unsouled right now. One of his main characters (Lev) has just figured out that his spirit animal is a kinkajou.
Some people--including Shusterman--tried to persuade me that he's doing a good thing with his Native characters and content (like this spirit animal stuff). He means well, just like the person who created this ridiculous Spirit Animal quiz at Buzzfeed.
But!!! Good intentions don't matter.
The quiz isn't harmless. Neither is Shusterman's book. Perpetuating and affirming ignorance doesn't do anyone any good.
Do some good!
If you found yourself taking that Buzzfeed quiz or if you found yourself liking Shusterman's Native content, but this post makes you think otherwise, push back on The White Man's Indian. Reject it and tell others to reject it, too.
Decades ago--and now, too--I revel in the music of The Band. I was amongst those who went to see the film The Last Waltz. Of course, I bought CDs, too. At the time, I knew Robbie Robertson was Native, but didn't know much else about him. Today, I'm pleased as can be to share Rock and Roll Highway: The Robbie Robertson Story. Here's the cover:
Thanks to this book, I've had the opportunity to learn a lot more about Robertson. Released this year (2014) by Henry Holt, the biography is written by Sebastian Robertson (yeah, Robbie's son). The illustrations by Adam Gustavson are terrific.
Robertson is Mohawk.
The second page of Rock and Roll Highway is titled "We Are the People of the Longhouse." There, we learn that his given name is Jaime Royal Robertson. His mother is Mohawk; his father is Jewish.
Allow me to dwell on the title for that page... "We Are the People of the Longhouse." That is so cool... so very cool... Why? Because this book is published by a major publisher, which means lots of libraries are likely to get it, and lots of kids--Mohawk ones, too!--are going to read that title. And look at young Robbie on the cover. Sitting on a car. Wearing a tie. The potential for this book to push back on stereotypes of Native people is spectacular!
In the summers, Robertson and his mom went to the Six Nations Indian Reservation where his mom grew up (I'm guessing that "Indian Reservation" was added to Six Nations because the former is more familiar to US readers, but I see that decision as a missed opportunity to increase what kids know about First Nations). There were lots of relatives at Six Nations, and lots of gatherings, too, where elders told stories. The young Robbie liked those stories and told his mom that one day, he wanted to be a storyteller, too.
That life--as a storyteller who tells with music--is wonderfully presented in Rock and Roll Highway. Introduce students to Robertson using this bio and his music. Make sure you have the CDs specific to his Mohawk identity. The first one is Music for Native Americans. Ulali, one of my favorite groups, is part of that CD. Check out this video from 2010. In it, Robertson and Ulali are on stage together (Ulali's song, Mahk Jchi, is one of my all time favorites. It starts at the 4:39 mark in this video):
The second album is Contact from the Underworld of Redboy. Get it, too.
Back to the book: Ronnie Hawkins. Bob Dylan. They figure prominently in Robertson's life. The closing page has terrific photographs of Robertson as a young child, a teen, and a dad, too.
Teachers are gonna love the pages titled "An Interview with My Dad, Robbie Robertson" in which Sebastian tells readers to interview their own parents. That page shows a post card Robertson sent to his mother while he was on the road. Things like post cards carry a good deal of family history. I pore over the ones I have--that my parents and grandparents sent to each other.
Deeply satisfied with Rock and Roll Highway: The Robbie Robertson Story, I highly recommend it.
There's a new board book out by Cree Metis artist, Julie Flett, and like her other ones, it is a winner!
Like her previous works, We All Count: A Book of Cree Numbers is a bilingual board book. In this one, the numbers 1-10 are presented in English and Cree.
Flett's collage work is gorgeous. I love the quiet and bold colors she uses in her compositions. Here's the page for number 1. The text reads "One prairie dog perching."
And here's the page for number 10, where the text reads "Ten elk crossing."
Flett's book is excellent for parents, teachers, or librarians to read to young children. Obviously, this is a counting book, so counting will happen, but the words!
Prairie dogs perching! Can you imagine showing the child you're reading to, how to perch like a prairie dog? On the page for number three, aunties are laughing. The joy on their faces is, well, joyful! Laugh along with them! Those owls on the cover? They're six owls spotting. It'd be great fun to pause on that page, and peer about, spotting things nearby.
I really like this book. I'm as joyful as those aunties! The pages in Flett's book provide a chance to do something that extends the reading itself, enriching what a young child knows about words and actions.
Though I'm sure Flett didn't have diversity in mind when she came up with the title, We All Count, the title and her book do a beautiful job of saying We--people who are Indigenous or who speak Cree--we count, too.
Your book is brilliant, Julie Flett! KĹł́'daa! (That is 'thank you' in Tewa, my language.)
We All Count: A Book of Numbers is highly recommended. Written and illustrated by Julie Flett, it was published in 2014 by Native Northwest.
