Over the weekend, Kara Stewart posted her Dear Agents and Editors letter. It consists of a series of questions that agents and editors can use to evaluate American Indian content. Kara was amongst those interviewed for the Educators Roundtable at We Need Diverse Books (I just realized there's no date stamp on that post. I believe it went up in mid-December of 2016).
A couple of weeks ago, she wrote to me about an idea she had about creating a guide for agents and editors in kidlit... a guide that can help them--and the authors they work with--recognize problems with the ways in which writers claim native ancestry, and/or create content about Native people or characters or places. I think it is a great idea! Kara's idea evolved into a document that is now up at her site.
Kara created it with two writers in mind. Each part has a list of questions an agent or editor can pose. For each question, there is a "cheat sheet" of how a writer might respond, and how the agent or editor can interpret that response and, perhaps, push further.
First is the writer who tells their agent and editor that they are Native. Across the US and Canada, there are many people who believe they have Native ancestry. This is put forth as "I'm part Native American" when they participate in discussions about issues specific to Native people. Some writers use that phrase, too, when submitting a manuscript to their agent or editor. It is a fraught claim. Many people think it is racist to ask someone to say more about that, but, that concern points to the depth of ignorance about who Native peoples are. The first part of Kara's guide is designed to help people understand that we're nations of people, and to help them understand how to ask writers about their clams to Native identity.
Second is the writer who has Native content in their manuscript. That part of the guide is designed to help agents and editors push the writer to think more deeply about why they're including Native content.
It concludes with a list of resources. Take time to read Kara's post! Send it to writers, agents, and editors! She's titled it Questions Agents and Editors Can Use to Evaluate American Indian Content. If you have questions or comments about it, you can post them at her site. I see this as a document that can--and will evolve--with your input.
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Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Thursday, June 16, 2016
A critical look at O'Dell's ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS
Update on Sep 24, 2018: I (Debbie), shared this post on Twitter yesterday, because I was critiquing a young adult novel in which the author cited Island of the Blue Dolphins as a significant book from her childhood. Dr. Eve Tuck read my tweet, this post, and responded. Dr. Tuck is Aleut, and is an Education professor who has served as editor of NCTE's English Journal. See her article, Decolonization is not a metaphor, and her books, listed at her website. With her permission, I am adding her response to my tweet and article. They are at the bottom of this post.
~~~~~~~~~~
"A Critical Look at O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins"
Debbie Reese (published here on June 16, 2016)
In his story,
O’Dell changes Juana Maria’s status to a twelve-year old girl named Karana. As
the story opens, Karana and her little brother Romo are digging roots when a ship
arrives. On board is a Russian captain named Orlov who has come with forty of
his (Aleut) men to hunt sea otter. Based on past experiences, Chief Chowig
(Karana’s father) and Orlov have a tense discussion about what the Ghalas-at
will receive in return for the otters that will be taken from the waters that
abut the island. Months later when Orlov readies to leave without holding up
his end of the bargain, a fight breaks out. Most of the men of Ghalas-at,
including Chowig, are killed. Two years later, the survivors are rescued. After
the rescue ship leaves the cove, Karana realizes Romo is not on board. She
jumps ship to stay with him and wait for another rescue ship. Soon after, wild
dogs kill Romo, and Karana is alone until her rescue.
Her years on the
island make survival a central theme of the story. During that time, she builds
several shelters, makes weapons that only men are supposed to make (according
to tribal traditions), finds food, fights wild dogs, befriends a large dog that
she thinks came to the island with the Russian ship and then when he dies,
tames a wild dog that she thinks was fathered by the large dog. She survives an
earthquake, a tsunami, and several harsh winter storms.
At the close of
the story, she is leaving the island. Based on the text, she has been there at
least four years. On page 162, the text reads that two years have passed since
the Aleuts had been on the island. At that point, Karana stopped counting the
passage of time. One spring, there is an earthquake. As she makes a new
shelter, she sees a ship and at first, she hides from the two men who come
ashore. She decides she wants to be with people again, and rushes down to the
cove but the canoe is gone. Two years pass and a ship returns. This time, she
doesn’t hide. When the ship leaves, she is on board with her dog and two caged
birds.
A few words about Scott O’Dell
Born in Los
Angeles, California in 1898, O’Dell died in 1989. He spent the first thirty
years of his adult life working in Hollywood as a cameraman and writer. In
1920, a California newspaper misprinted Odell Gabriel Scott’s name as Scott
O’Dell. Liking the misprint, Scott legally changed his name and from then on,
was known as Scott O’Dell. In 1947, he became the book editor for the Los Angeles Daily News (Payment, 2006).
In addition to his
writing, O’Dell spent time with his father on his orange grove ranch, where he
visited ranches of Spanish families of the Pomona Valley and listened to their
stories of the past. This led him to write three novels for adults, and a
history of California.
In 1957, O’Dell
published Country of the Sun: Southern
California, An Informal History and Guide. Therein, he references Helen
Hunt Jackson’s articles, published in 1882 in Century Magazine, about the mistreatment of the Cupeno Indians of
California. He also references her novel, Ramona,
published in 1884, saying her novel “had about the same impact as Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Overnight, the
country was aroused to the plight of the Southern California Indian” (p. 52). Country of the Sun includes two pages
about “The Lost Woman of San Nicolas Island”.
O’Dell developed
the story into a book-length manuscript and showed it to Maud Lovelace (author
of the Betsy-Tacy books). She persuaded him “that it was a book for children,
and a very good one” (Scott O’Dell, n.d.). Lovelace penned the biography for
O’Dell when he won the Newbery Medal for Island
of the Blue Dolphins. She concludes the biography with “Scott O’Dell’s life
brought him naturally a knowledge of Indians, dogs, and the ocean; and he was
born with an inability to keep from writing. So he gave us the moving legend of
Karana” (p. 108).
In his acceptance
speech, O’Dell referenced animal cruelty and forgiveness as themes that are
present in his book. He also spoke at length of Antonio Garra, a Cupeno Indian
man who, just before he was executed under bogus charges, said “I ask your
pardon for all my offenses, and I pardon you in return” (O’Dell, p. 103).
O’Dell went on to say that this man, of a peaceful tribe, is unknown to the
world because he was peaceful rather than “like Geronimo” (p. 103). Karana, he
said, belonged to a tribe like Garra’s. He concluded his speech saying that
Karana, before her people were killed, lived in a world where “everything lived
only to be exploited” but that she “made the change from that world” to “a new
and more meaningful world” because she learned that “we each must be an island
secure unto ourselves” where we “transgress our limits” in a “reverence for all
life” (p. 104).
Acclaim and Critiques of Island
of the Blue Dolphins
Island of the Blue Dolphins received
glowing reviews and went on to win the Newbery Award. It was made into a movie
in 1964 and has since been made into audio recordings several times. The
National Council of Teachers of English listed it on its “Books for You” in
1972, 1976, and 1988. In 1976, the Children’s Literature Association named it
one of the ten best American children’s books of the past 200 years (O’Dell,
1990). It is the subject of numerous amateur videos on YouTube and there are
volumes of lesson plans written for teachers. Over the years, the cover has
changed several times. As of this writing, it has 734 customer reviews on
Amazon.com. Thirty-three readers gave it one star, while over 600 gave it four or
five stars.
In 1990, Island of the Blue Dolphins was republished,
with illustrations rendered by Ted Lewin, and an introduction by Zena
Sutherland. A fiftieth anniversary edition was published in 2010, with a new
introduction by Lois Lowry. She showers O’Dell’s novel with praise, noting that
he “masterfully” brings the reader onto the island (O’Dell, 2010). In 2010, School Library Journal blogger Elizabeth
Bird listed it as one of the Top 100 Children’s Novels (Reese, 2010). In 2010,
the book was listed in second place on Amazon’s list of “Bestsellers in
Children’s Native American Books” (Reese, 2010).
In the academic
literature, Maher (1992) writes that Island
of the Blue Dolphins is a “counterwestern” that gives “voice to the
oppressed, to those who lost their lands and their cultures” (p. 216). Tarr
(1997) disagrees with that assessment, asserting that the reader’s uncritical
familiarity with stereotypical depictions of American Indians is the reason it
has fared so well. Moreover, Tarr (2002) writes that the stoic characterization
of Karana and her manner of speaking without contractions are stereotypical
Hollywood Indian depictions rather than one that might be called authentic. Placing
the novel in a social and historical context gives depth to Tarr’s statement
and also explains why it is so popular.
Island of the Blue Dolphins in
a Social and Historical Context
In the years
preceding the publication of Island of
the Blue Dolphins, America was enjoying the heyday of Hollywood Westerns
that depicted savage Indians who terrorized settlers and captured their women,
and heroic White men who courted Indian maidens and bemoaned the way Indians
were treated by Whites. John Ford’s Stagecoach
(1939) follows a stagecoach of travelers who must be mindful of Indian attacks.
Broken Arrow (1950) featured Jimmy
Stewart as a man in love with an Apache girl and who, out of love and sympathy,
tries to help make peace between the Apaches and the U.S. troops. In The Searchers (1956), John Wayne plays
the role of a man on the search for a White girl who had been abducted by
Indians.
Some of the
research that went into Country of the
Sun reappears in Island.
Presumably, O’Dell conducted his research during the 1950s. That decade was a
devastating time for several American Indian nations, a time during which their
identity as sovereign nations was again under government attack. It is useful
to review how they came to be known as sovereign nations.
From the moments
of their arrival on the continent now called North America, Europeans
encountered well-ordered nations or tribes of Indigenous peoples, each with its
own territories and forms of governance. Recognition of that nationhood is
evident in the treaties European heads of state made with their counterparts
amongst the 500+ sovereign Indigenous nations (Deloria and DeMallie, 1999). In
the treaties, lands were ceded to the United States in return for federally
provided health care, housing, and education. As time passed, various entities
wanted to nullify the treaties, thereby discontinuing federal funding to tribes
and making available lands held by tribes. Desire for land, coupled with the rampant
corruption within the Bureau of Indian Affairs that had federal oversight for
the tribes, led Congress to terminate its nation-to-nation relationship with
the tribes through a policy outlined in House Concurrent Resolution 108
(Wilkinson and Biggs, 1977) that led to several public laws enacted by Congress,
including the California Rancheria Termination Act (Public Law 85-671). Through
the Termination period (1953-1962), over one hundred bands, communities, and
rancherias (California Mission Indians) in California were terminated (Nies,
1996). Given his care to include mistreatment of California Indians in the
1800s, it is curious that O’Dell does not reference any of the Terminations in Country of the Sun.
Emma Hardacre’s Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island
As noted, Island of the Blue Dolphins is based on
the life of Juana Maria. At the time of his research, the resources he had
available to him about Juana Maria were newspaper accounts and articles about
her. Emma Hardacre’s “The Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island” was first published
in Scribner’s Monthly in 1880, and
then again in 1950 and 1973. Hardacre begins by noting that Robinson Crusoe is
a work of fiction, whereas the story of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island
was true. In Santa Barbara, people spoke less and less about the “widow,
between twenty and thirty years of age” who leapt from the ship to be with her
child who had accidentally been left behind (p. 75).
Years later, a
Mission priest named Father Gonzales commissioned Thomas Jeffries to go to San
Nicolas to see if she was still alive. Jeffries (p. 277):
found the remains
of a curious hut, made of whales’ ribs planted in a circle, and so adjusted as
to form the proper curve of a wigwam-shaped shelter. This he judged to have
been formerly either the residence of the chief or a place of worship where
sacrifices were offered. He had picked up several ollas, or vessels of stone,
and one particularly handsome cup of clouded green serpentine.
More interesting to Jeffries was
the abundance of sea otter. Soon after his return to the mainland, he returned
to the island with George Nidiver and a crew of Indians on an otter hunt. For
six weeks, they hunted seal and otter. Leaving the island, a sailor said he
thought he saw a human figure calling to them, but the figure vanished.
On their third
trip to hunt at the island, Nidiver saw a footprint and exclaimed that the
woman was alive. The next day, Nidiver found a basket that contained “bone
needles, thread made of sinews, shell fishhooks, ornaments, and a partially
completed robe of birds’ plumage, made of small squares neatly matched and
sewed together” (p. 279). In their search of the inland, they found “several
circular, roofless inclosures [sic], made of woven brush. Near these shelters
were poles, with dried meat hanging from elevated crosspieces” (p. 279). Not
finding the woman, they determined the footprint was older than they thought,
and some thought that she was probably dead. Fishing continued for several
weeks. Nidiver believed she might be alive and hiding and decided to look until
he found her or her remains.
A search was
organized. They found the whale bone house, where “rushes were skillfully
interlaced in the rib framework; an olla and old basket were near the door.”
(p. 279). Climbing over slippery rocks,
they found fresh footprints and followed them up a cliff. Brown, a fisherman,
saw the woman in an enclosure and approached her. A pack of dogs growled at him
but ran away when she uttered a cry that silenced them. She did not see Brown
approaching. Hardacre reports that “the complexion of the woman was much fairer
than the ordinary Indian, her personal appearance pleasing, features regular,
her hair, thick and brown, falling about her shoulders in a tangled mat” (p.
280). She was anxiously watching the men below her dwelling. Brown signaled to
the men that he had found her and that they should approach. When he spoke to
her, she ran a few steps, then (p. 280):
instantly controlling herself, stood still,
and addressed him in an unknown tongue. She seemed to be between forty and
fifty years of age, in fine physical condition, erect, with a well-shaped neck
and arms and unwrinkled face. She was dressed in a tunic-shaped garment made of
birds’ plumage, low in the neck, sleeveless, and reaching to the ankle.
She greeted the other men and then
set about preparing a meal for them that consisted of roasted roots. Through
gestures, they communicated that she was to go with them. She understood
immediately and put her things in pack baskets.
On board their
ship, Brown wanted to preserve her feather dress, and so made her a petticoat
of ticking. He gave her a man’s cotton shirt and a neckerchief. She watched
Brown closely as he sewed, and showed him how she used her bone needle to
puncture the cloth and then put thread through the perforations. Through
gestures, she told Brown of her years on the island, how she made fire “by
rapidly rubbing a pointed stick along the groove of a flat stick until a spark
was struck” and that she was careful not to let it go out, covering her home
fire with ashes to preserve it. She ate fish, seals’ blubber, roots, and
shellfish, and she used bird skins for clothing. Her main dwelling was a large
cave on the north end of the island.
On arrival in
Santa Barbara, people flocked to Nidiver’s home to see her. Through gestures,
she told Nidiver’s wife that dogs had eaten her baby and how she grieved its
loss. She also communicated her dread of being alone, her years of hope for
rescue, and at last, resignation at being alone. Nidiver was unable to find
anyone amongst the Indians in the Missions who could understand her language.
They learned some of her words: “A hide she called to-co (to-kay); a man, nache (nah-chey); the sky, te-gua (tay-gwah); the body, pinche (pin-oo-chey)” (p. 283). She was so gentle and
modest that some believed she was not an Indian, but “a person of distinction
cast away by shipwreck” (p. 283). She got weaker and weaker and when she was
near death, Nidiver’s wife asked Father Sanchez to baptize her. He did so,
giving her the name Juana Maria. She was buried in a walled cemetery and the
mission fathers “sent her feather robes to Rome. They were made of the satiny
plumage of the green cormorant, the feathers pointing downward, and so
skillfully matched as to seem one continuous sheen of changeful luster” (p.
284).
Academic Resources
The academic
resources on the people of San Nicolas Island were scant at that time that
O’Dell wrote Island of the Blue Dolphins.
Archeological studies post-1960 have generated a richer body of materials.
Pre-1960, O’Dell likely drew from resources he used when writing his history of
California. These included Kroeber’s handbook. He reports that her speech
(language) was “thoroughly unintelligible” to Chumash Indians in the area and
to Indians from Santa Catalina Island as well (p. 634). Most dwellings, Kroeber
wrote, “were reared on a frame of whale ribs and jaws, either covered with
sea-lion hides or wattled with brush or rushes” (p. 634). Dugout canoes “may
have been burned from drift logs” (p. 634). Seals, water birds, fish, and
mollusks were the primary source of food, supplemented by roots. He concludes
with “whether the toloache cult or the image form of mourning anniversary had
reached the island must remain in abeyance; and as to society, there is total
ignorance. Ghalas-at has been given as the name of the island. This is perhaps
the native or the Chumash pronunciation of Gabrielino Haras-nga” (p. 635.)
O’Dell may have
read a study published in an archeological journal in 1953. Meighan and Eberhart’s
study stated that “ethnographically, almost nothing is known of the tribe” and
that there was a “virtual absence of trade goods, in particular glass beads”
(p. 109). They reference the possessions of the woman as follows: “a well made
sinew rope 25 feet long and one-half inch in diameter, thought to have been
used in snaring sleeping seals” and, “sinew fishing line; bone and abalone
shell fishhooks; bone needles; bone knives, and a knife made of a piece of iron
hoop stuck in a rough wooden handle” (p. 112). Items found on the island
include mats and skirt fragments made of eel grass, grass skirts, woven bags,
woven baskets, stone knives with wooden handles, a stone drill with a wooden
handle, wooden knife handles, a wooden ladle, an arrow shaft, a wooden dark
foreshaft with bone bars, a drill with wooden shaft and stone point, harpoon
points, a great many mortars and pestles, steatite dishes and bowls, stone
beads and pendants, bird and sea-lion claws used as pendants, stone ground
spoons and ladles . Meighan and Eberhart report four Nicoleno words: “tokay
(hide), nahchey (man), taygway (sky), and pinoochey (body). Bird bones were
used to make beads, whistles, awls, and fishhooks. Fish and shellfish were the primary source of
food, including abalone, rock scallops, mussels, limpets, and sea urchins.
Clearly, these two
key sources say little was known about the people of Ghalas-at and the woman at
the heart of O’Dell’s novel. And yet, he was able to write a novel of 186
pages. With this survey of the source material of that time, I turn to a close
read of specific passages from the story.
A Close Read of Island of the
Blue Dolphins
In the following
table, the left column contains a selection of material from the story. In the
right column are notes specific to the information in the left column. Some of
the passages are not addressed in the Discussion following the table; they are
retained in the table for further research.
Text
|
Notes
|
“I remember the day the Aleut ship came to our island” (p.
9)
|
“I” is Karana. On page 12, O’Dell tells us the name of the
island: Ghalas-at. The Aleut’s are an Indigenous people from what came to be
known as Alaska. During the time of the novel (1835), the Aleuts were
enslaved by Russians and forced to hunt sea otters (Pullar, 1996).
|
Karana describes Romo, her 6-year old brother: “He was
small for one who had lived so many suns and moons” (p. 9)
|
Writers often use the cliché “many moons ago” when writing
from an Indian point of view. Though it is obvious that people who do not
speak English would have words in their language for sun or moon or the
passage of time, the “many moons ago” idiom, inserted into the mind/mouth of
any Native character obscures the diversity of language.
|
When Romo sees the Aleut ship, he describes it as “a small
cloud” (p. 10).
|
In Country of the
Sun, O’Dell recounts a Cahuilla legend, “The Lost Spanish Galleon” (p.
147) that begins with Cahuilla men seeing a Spanish galleon and thinking it
was a cloud.
|
As Orlov comes ashore, “Half the men from our village
stood at the water’s edge. The rest were concealed among the rocks at the
foot of the trail, ready to attack the intruders should they prove
unfriendly” (p. 12).
|
In Country of the
Sun, when the Spanish galleon is sighted, O’Dell writes “The Cahuillas
hid themselves behind rocks along the shore” and their chief “cautioned his
people to remain hidden” (p. 148).
|
When Captain Orlov comes ashore and begins negotiations
with Karana’s father who is chief of the people at Ghalas-at, Karana is
surprised that her father gives Orlov his seldom used and secret “real” name
(Chowig) because “if people use your secret name it becomes worn out and
loses its magic” (p. 13).
|
Look for: Names and their power.
|
“Karana” is the protagonists’ secret name. Her common name
is “Won-a-pa-lei” which means “The Girl with the Long Black Hair” (p. 13).
|
The translation does not make sense, given the likelihood
that all the girls would have long black hair.
|
The Aleuts come ashore, and Karana sees “a tall man with a
yellow beard” (p. 12).
|
In Country of the
Sun, Yuma Indians and a “bearded” Spanish captain come ashore (p. 148).
|
The night Orlov arrives, her father “warned everyone in
the village of Ghalas-at against visiting the camp. “The Aleuts come from a
country far to the north,” he said. “Their ways are not ours nor is their
language” (p. 17).
|
From O’Dell’s Country
of the Sun: The night the Spanish came ashore, “Darkness fell and the
Cahuillas went silently back to their village and held council far into the
night. The older men, who had heard tales of Spanish greed and ferocity, were
in favor of abandoning the village and taking the women and children into the
mountains. But the younger men, proud of their heritage as warriors and
jealous of it, prevailed” (p. 148). They lay plans for an attack.
|
Each night, people in the tribe “counted the dead otter
and thought of the beads and other things that each pelt meant” (p. 23).
Karana does not like the slaughter of the otters she
regards as friends she would have fun watching as they played. “It was more
fun than the thought of beads to wear around my neck” (p. 23).
|
This is O’Dell’s first mention of beads. Presumably, the
negotiations that took place when Orlov landed included beads but this was
not specified.
In Country of the Sun:
The next morning, the Spanish gave each of the Indians “a handful of beaded
trinkets” (p. 149).
The beads story works because it plays on the idea that
Indians are not smart enough to know that their land and resources aren’t
worth more than beads. Williams’ analysis of Dutch, Manhattan, beads is
excellent.
|
Karana’s father sends young men “to the beach to build a
canoe from a log which had drifted in from the sea” (p. 24).
|
Kroeber: Canoes “may have been burned from drift logs” (p.
634).
|
Orlov and his men prepare to leave without paying for the
otter pelts. Chowig speaks to Orlov, who signals his men to bring a black
chest to the island: “Captain Orlov raised the lid and pulled out several
necklaces. There was little light in the sky, yet the beads sparkled as he
turned them this way and that” (p. 27)
|
The archeological record (Kroeber/Meighan & Eberhart) does
not list sparkly beads recovered on San Nicolas Island.
|
Items Karana has in a basket she carries onto the rescue
ship: “three fine needles of whalebone, an awl for making holes, a good stone
knife for scarping hides, two cooking pots, and a small box made from a shell
with many earrings in it” (p. 42).
|
References to these items are in the historical record.
|
Karana’s sister, Ulape, “had two boxes of earrings, for
she was vainer than I, and when she put them into her basket, she drew a thin
mark with blue clay across her nose and cheekbones. The mark meant that she
was unmarried” (p. 42).
|
An assumption that Karana and her people had the same
ideas of beauty (vanity) that O’Dell did.
|
After she leaps off the boat and is back on shore, “The
only thing that made me angry was that my beautiful skirt of yucca fibers,
which I had worked on so long and carefully, was ruined” (p. 47).
|
An assumption that Karana and her people held the same
ideas of beauty that O’Dell did.
|
Romo declares that, as son of Chowig, he is now Chief of
Ghalas-at. Karana replies that before he can be the chief, he must become a
man: “As is the custom, therefore, I will have to whip you with a switch of
nettles and then tie you to a red ant hill” (p. 51).
|
O’Dell’s likely source for this is Kroeber’s Handbook of the Indians of California,
Volume 2. On page 672, he describes “The Ant Ordeal” that may have been
part of the “Toloache Initiation” of Luiseno boys: “The boys were laid on ant
hills, or put into a hole containing ants. More of the insects were shaken
over them from baskets in which they had been gathered. The sting or bite of
the large ant smarts intensely, and the ordeal was a severe one, and rather
doubtfully ameliorated when at the conclusion the ants were whipped from the
body by nettles.”
|
Romo has “a strong of sea-elephant teeth which someone had
left behind” (p. 50).
|
Meighan references sea-lion claws used as pendants.
|
Karana needs weapons: “The laws of Ghalas-at forbade the
making of weapons by women of the tribe, so I went out to search for any that
might have been left behind” (p. 58.)
|
Future research
|
Thinking the chest Orlov left may have an iron spearhead,
Karana digs up the chest and finds it “filled with beads and bracelets and
earrings of many colors” (p. 59). There are no spearheads in the chest.
|
Reference to beads draws on “primitive” (stupid) Indians
who sold Manhattan for beads.
|
Karana “wondered what would happen to me if I went against
the law of our tribe which forbade the making of weapons by women—if I did
not think of it at all and made those things which I must have to protect
myself” (p. 61).
|
Future research on weaponry.
|
“There was a legend among our people that the island had
once been covered with tall trees. This was a long time ago, at the beginning
of the world when Tumaiyowit and Mukat ruled. The two gods quarreled about
many things. Tumaiyowit wished people to die. Mukat did not. Tumaiyowit
angrily went down, down to another world under this world, taking his belongs
with him, so people die because of him” (p. 82).
|
This story, from the Cupeno Indians, appears in Country of the Sun in “Revolt in the
Mountains” as follows: “One of the most dramatic and current [myths of
creation], as recounted by Salvador Cuevas, a Luiseno, has the world and
everything in it created by the gods Tumaiyowit and Mukat. The gods quarreled
and argued about their respective ages. They disagreed about many things.
Tumaiyowit wished people to die. Mukat did not. Tumaiyowit went down, down to
another world under this world, takig his belongings with him, so people die
because he did” (p. 47). It is also in Kroeber’s Handbook, on page 692.
|
Karana uses several words that she says are in her
language:
“Won-a-pa-lei” means “the girl with the long black hair”
(p. 13)
“sai-sai” is a kind of fish (p. 85)
“rontu” means fox eyes (p. 105)
“zalwit” means pelican (p. 107)
“naip” means fish (p. 107)
“gnapan” is a thick leaved plant (p. 115)
“Mon-a-nee” means “Girl with the Large Eyes” (p. 160)
“Rontu-Aru” means “son of Rontu” (p. 169)
|
None of these words are in Kroeber or Hardacre.
|
Discussion
O’Dell had little
to go on in creating the worldview of Karana and her people. To flesh out the
story, he inserted his prior research on other California tribes, inserting their
ways into the Nicoleno tribe, as though one peoples’ way of being was
interchangeable with another. O’Dell wrote Island
of the Blue Dolphins prior to the development of multicultural literature
and the attention to specificity, so it may be appropriate not to judge him too
harshly for doing it. He also drew from popular stereotypes and clichés of
American Indians, including the stories in which American Indians traded their
land for a string of beads. An American embrace of stereotypes and clichés led
to—and guaranteed—the success of the novel.
Island of the Blue Dolphins is a lot
like most books and media about American Indians that give the audience the
kind of Indians that America loves to love (Shanley, 1997). O’Dell gave us
both: the savage ones (the Aleuts), and the gentle ones (Karana’s people). In a
spirit of generosity, it is possible to justify why his story met with such
success but how do we justify an embrace of it in the present time, when we
know so much more about accuracy and authenticity of representation? And why do
even our leading scholars fail to step away from the book? For example, in her
introduction to the illustrated version, Zena Sutherland conflated the story of
Juana Maria with the fictional story of Karana. She incorrectly refers to the
Lost Woman as Karana, instead of Juana Maria. She says that she was twelve
years old (Juana Maria was a mother, not a child), and that Karana’s brother
died on the island (Juana Maria’s child died). The real person is lost in the
embrace of the fiction character, Karana. Is sentiment in the way?
Conclusion
There is a
fascination, a nostalgia, and a yearning for the romantic Indian and all that
“Indian” means to people who think the best life anyone could have is one of
the Indian of yesteryear, living in the pristine wilderness, where the weight
of the world is not on your shoulders, where you can breath clean air, and
drink clean water.
This nostalgia
also captures the imaginings of the perfect childhood, but neither one is—or
was—real. As such, Island of the Blue
Dolphins is a perfect example of a book at the center of the canon of
sentiment (Stevenson, 1997). Indeed, the canon of sentiment “exists to
preserve—to preserve the childhood of those adults who create that canon and to
preserve the affection those adults feel for the books within it” (p. 113). A
good many adults imagine the childhood O'Dell described and the survival that
Karana experienced. We like to think we could survive, too, and a story like
this one lets us see how that could happen.
Nonetheless, the
story is lacking in its accuracy and suitability for informing children about
American Indians. Will there come a time when there is a critical mass of
gatekeepers rejecting works like this? I hope so. Sentiment is no excuse for
ignorance.
References
Deloria, V. and DeMallie, R. J. Documents of American Indian Diplomacy. Norman:
University of
Oklahoma Press.
Hardacre, Emma. (1971). The Lone
Woman of San Nicolas Island. The
California Indians: Source Book, edited by R. F. Heizer and
M. A. Whipple. Berkeley: University of California Press,
272-281.
Kroeber, A.L. (1925). Handbook of the Indians of California. Washington
DC: U.S. Government
Printing Office.
Lovelace, M. H. (1961). Scott
O’Dell: Biographical note. The Horn Book
Magazine, 37,
105-108.
105-108.
Maher, S. N. (1992). Encountering
others: The meeting of cultures in Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins and Sing Down the Moon. Children’s Literature in
Education, 23(4), 215-227.
Meighan, C.W. and Eberhart, H.
(1953). Archaeological resources of San Nicolas Island, California. American Antiquity, 19(2), 109-125.
Nies, J. (1996). Native American History. New York:
Ballantine Books.
O’Dell, S. (1957). Country of the Sun: Southern California, An Informal History and Guide. New York: Thomas E. Crowell Company.
O’Dell, S. (1961). Acceptance
paper. The Horn Book Magazine, 37, 99-104.
O’Dell, S. (1978). Island of the Blue Dolphins. Trumpet
Club Edition. New York: Dell Publishing Co.
O’Dell, S. (1990). Island of the Blue Dolphins. With
illustrations by Ted Lewin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company.
Payment, S. (2006). Scott O’Dell. New York: Rosen Pub.
Group.
Reese, D. (2010). Bestsellers in Children’s Native American Books.
Pullar, G. L. (1996). Alutiiq. Native America in the Twentieth Century: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. Edited by Mary B. Davis.
Reese, D. (2010). Portrayals of American Indians in SLJ’s 2010 “Top 100 Children’s Novels”
Scott O’Dell (n.d.). More about Scott.
Shanley, K. W. (1997). The Indians
America loves to love and read: American Indian identity and
cultural appropriation. American Indian
Quarterly, 21(4), 675-702.
Stevenson, D. (1997). Sentiment and significance: The impossibility of recovery in the children’s literature canon or, the drowning of The Water-babies. The Lion and the Unicorn, 21(1), 112.
Tarr, C. A. (1997). An
unintentional system of gaps: A phenomenological reading of Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins. Children’s
Literature in Education, 28(2), 61-71.
Tarr, C. A. (2002). Apologizing for
Scott O’Dell: Too little, too late. Children’s
Literature, 30, 199-204.
Wesselhoeft, C. (2010). Scott
O’Dell, ‘Blue Dolphins’ author, tells why he writes for children. Retrieved from http://adiosnirvana.com/?p=480
Wilkinson,
C.F. and Biggs, E.R. (1977). The evolution of the termination policy. American Indian
Law Review 5(1),
139-184.
__________________
Update, June 17, 2016: Bridgid Shannon, a colleague in children's literature, pointed me to the Lone Woman and Last Indians Digital Archives, a page maintained by the National Park Service. Do take a look! Lots of terrific info from a team led by Sara L. Schwebel.
Update, June 19, 2016: Lauren Peters, a fellow member of the American Indian Library Association, sent me her review of Island of the Blue Dolphins. She posted it in 2013: Defending the Aleuts in Island of the Blue Dolphins.
__________
Update, September 24, 2018: Professor Eve Tuck's response to this article consists of a series of tweets. Her thread started at 8:07 AM on September 23, 2018.
Update, June 17, 2016: Bridgid Shannon, a colleague in children's literature, pointed me to the Lone Woman and Last Indians Digital Archives, a page maintained by the National Park Service. Do take a look! Lots of terrific info from a team led by Sara L. Schwebel.
Update, June 19, 2016: Lauren Peters, a fellow member of the American Indian Library Association, sent me her review of Island of the Blue Dolphins. She posted it in 2013: Defending the Aleuts in Island of the Blue Dolphins.
__________
Update, September 24, 2018: Professor Eve Tuck's response to this article consists of a series of tweets. Her thread started at 8:07 AM on September 23, 2018.
I appreciate the thorough analysis that @debreese has done here. As an Aleut person, I can say that the inaccuracies depiction of Aleut people in this book meant that non-Indigenous people said a lot of painful and ignorant things to me, especially as a kid.
I was a kid growing up in a white rural town in Pennsylvania, and usually ours was the only Native family in the community. I attended a school that had multiple copies of this book in classrooms, the library. I remember there even being a door display of this book.
So I grew up in a white community that only knew of Aleuts (Unangan) from this book.
I was taunted for it. I was asked by children and teachers to explain why Aleuts were “so mean.” And no matter what I said about my family, especially my grandmother, it wasn’t believed.
The book was believed over my real-life knowledge of Aleut people.
Fictionalizing an Indigenous community to make them the violent device of your plot line is a totally settler thing to do. O’Dell had no business writing a word “about” our people.
The book says nothing about us. Like Gerald Vizenor’s analysis of the figure of the ‘indian,’ it says more about the violent preoccupations of the settler, and says nothing about Unangan.
The last thing that I will say is that when I think about colonial violence that Aleut people were *actually* experiencing in their/our homelands in the time period that the book was set, it makes me doubly angry about the falsehoods depicted in this book.
But that would never be a best seller.
Monday, May 02, 2016
Goodreads "Top 100 Children's Books"
On April 27, 2016, Jessica Donaghy posted The Top 100 Children's Books on Goodreads. To determine which chapter and middle grade books should be "on every kid's shelves" they "looked for the best reviewed books, all with average ratings above a 4.0 (a high bar that cuts out giants like Ramona and Huck Finn)."
Of course, such lists get circulated on social media.
The Children's Book Council tweeted it, and then John Schu tweeted it, which is how I saw it.
Looking it over, I gotta give it a thumbs down for the Native representations on it. Come on, people! How about, when you look at these kinds of lists, you ask yourself about Native representations on it. We all have to speak up for change to happen!
I'm thrilled to see several authors of color on the list. I see Jackie Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming. And Kwame Alexander's Crossover, too. And Pam Munoz Ryan's Echo. And several titles by Sharon Draper. And Grace Lin's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.
But what about Native writers? None. Louise Erdrich's Birchbark House ought to be on here, don't you think? Nothing on it by the most prolific Native writer either! I mean Joseph Bruchac.
What about Native characters or stories that aren't stereotypical? Again, none. Here's the list of titles. The ones in bold are ones that have stereotypical Native characters. Those two? The grunting and animal-like Indians in Little House on the Prairie and the stereotypical Tiger Lily and playing-Indians of Peter Pan.
What did and did not got onto this list reflects two things: a visibility problem, and, a refusal to let go of books with stereotypical content. What will you do about that? Who else is missing, I wonder?
Aesop's Fables
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
Amulet, by Kazu Kibuishi
Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery
The Arabian Nights
Avatar: The Last Airbender, by Gene Luen Yang
Awkward, by Svetlana Chmakova
A Bear Called Paddington, by Michael Bond
The Black Stallion, by Walter Farley
Bone, by Jeff Smith
Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander
The Borrowers, by Mary Norton
The Boxcar Children (#1), by Gertrude Chandler Warren
Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson
Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson
Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Road Dahl
Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White
Coraline, by Neil Gaiman
Crossover, by Kwame Alexander
Dealing with Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede
The Devil's Arithmetic, by Jane Yolen
The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank
Drama, by Raina Telgemeier
Echo, by Pam Munoz Ryan
El Deafo, by Cece Bell
Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull
The False Prince, by Jennifer A. Nielsen
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E. L. Konigsburg
The Giver, by Lois Lowry
Gracefully Grayson, by Ami Polonsky
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
Grimm's Fairy Tales
A Handful of Stars, by Cynthia Lord
Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales
Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by J.K. Rowling
The Hobbit, by J. R. Tolkien
Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones
The Incredible Journey, by Sheila Burnford
Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai
Into the Wild (Warriors), by Erin Hunter
The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick
Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling
The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis
The Lions of Little Rock, by Kristin Levine
Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park
Mary Poppins, by P. L. Travers
Matilda, by Roald Dahl
The Mighty Miss Malone, by Christopher Paul Curtis
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate DiCamillo
Mockingbird, by Kathryn Erskine
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O'Brien
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, by Betty MacDonald
My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George
My Sweet Orange Tree, by Jose Mauro de Vasconcelos
The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart
The Name of this Book is Secret, by Pseudonymous Bosch
The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende
Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry
Old Yeller, by Fred Gipson
The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate
Out of My Mind, by Sharon M. Draper
Peter and the Starcatchers, by Dave Barry
Peter Pan, by J. M. Barre
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster
Pippi Longstocking, by Astrid Lindgren
Princess Academy, by Shannon Hale
The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan
The Red Umbrella, by Christina Diaz Gonzales
Redwall, by Brian Jacques
Ranger's Apprentice, by John Flanagan
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, by Eleanor Coerr
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz
The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
See You at Harry's, by Jo Knowles
Sideways Stories from Wayside School, by Louis Sachar
The Skin I'm In, by Sharon G. Flake
Smile, by Raina Telgemeier
So Be It, by Sarah Weeks
Stella by Starlight, by Sharon M. Draper
The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly, by Luis Sepulveda
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, by Judy Blume
The Two Princesses of Bamarre, by Gail Carson Levine
Watership Down, by Richard Adams
The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin
When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin
Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls
Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein
Winnie the Pooh, by A. A. Milne
The Land of Stories and the Wishing Spell, by Chris Colfer
Wolf Brother, by Michelle Paver
Wonder, by R. J. Palacio
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
Stereotypical representations: thumbs down |
The Children's Book Council tweeted it, and then John Schu tweeted it, which is how I saw it.
Looking it over, I gotta give it a thumbs down for the Native representations on it. Come on, people! How about, when you look at these kinds of lists, you ask yourself about Native representations on it. We all have to speak up for change to happen!
I'm thrilled to see several authors of color on the list. I see Jackie Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming. And Kwame Alexander's Crossover, too. And Pam Munoz Ryan's Echo. And several titles by Sharon Draper. And Grace Lin's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.
But what about Native writers? None. Louise Erdrich's Birchbark House ought to be on here, don't you think? Nothing on it by the most prolific Native writer either! I mean Joseph Bruchac.
What about Native characters or stories that aren't stereotypical? Again, none. Here's the list of titles. The ones in bold are ones that have stereotypical Native characters. Those two? The grunting and animal-like Indians in Little House on the Prairie and the stereotypical Tiger Lily and playing-Indians of Peter Pan.
What did and did not got onto this list reflects two things: a visibility problem, and, a refusal to let go of books with stereotypical content. What will you do about that? Who else is missing, I wonder?
Aesop's Fables
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
Amulet, by Kazu Kibuishi
Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery
The Arabian Nights
Avatar: The Last Airbender, by Gene Luen Yang
Awkward, by Svetlana Chmakova
A Bear Called Paddington, by Michael Bond
The Black Stallion, by Walter Farley
Bone, by Jeff Smith
Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander
The Borrowers, by Mary Norton
The Boxcar Children (#1), by Gertrude Chandler Warren
Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson
Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson
Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Road Dahl
Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White
Coraline, by Neil Gaiman
Crossover, by Kwame Alexander
Dealing with Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede
The Devil's Arithmetic, by Jane Yolen
The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank
Drama, by Raina Telgemeier
Echo, by Pam Munoz Ryan
El Deafo, by Cece Bell
Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull
The False Prince, by Jennifer A. Nielsen
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E. L. Konigsburg
The Giver, by Lois Lowry
Gracefully Grayson, by Ami Polonsky
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
Grimm's Fairy Tales
A Handful of Stars, by Cynthia Lord
Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales
Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by J.K. Rowling
The Hobbit, by J. R. Tolkien
Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones
The Incredible Journey, by Sheila Burnford
Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai
Into the Wild (Warriors), by Erin Hunter
The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick
Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling
The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis
The Lions of Little Rock, by Kristin Levine
Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park
Mary Poppins, by P. L. Travers
Matilda, by Roald Dahl
The Mighty Miss Malone, by Christopher Paul Curtis
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate DiCamillo
Mockingbird, by Kathryn Erskine
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O'Brien
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, by Betty MacDonald
My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George
My Sweet Orange Tree, by Jose Mauro de Vasconcelos
The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart
The Name of this Book is Secret, by Pseudonymous Bosch
The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende
Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry
Old Yeller, by Fred Gipson
The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate
Out of My Mind, by Sharon M. Draper
Peter and the Starcatchers, by Dave Barry
Peter Pan, by J. M. Barre
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster
Pippi Longstocking, by Astrid Lindgren
Princess Academy, by Shannon Hale
The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan
The Red Umbrella, by Christina Diaz Gonzales
Redwall, by Brian Jacques
Ranger's Apprentice, by John Flanagan
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, by Eleanor Coerr
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz
The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
See You at Harry's, by Jo Knowles
Sideways Stories from Wayside School, by Louis Sachar
The Skin I'm In, by Sharon G. Flake
Smile, by Raina Telgemeier
So Be It, by Sarah Weeks
Stella by Starlight, by Sharon M. Draper
The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly, by Luis Sepulveda
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, by Judy Blume
The Two Princesses of Bamarre, by Gail Carson Levine
Watership Down, by Richard Adams
The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin
When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin
Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls
Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein
Winnie the Pooh, by A. A. Milne
The Land of Stories and the Wishing Spell, by Chris Colfer
Wolf Brother, by Michelle Paver
Wonder, by R. J. Palacio
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
Friday, January 15, 2016
Ellen S. Cromwell's TALASI, A STORY OF TENDERNESS AND LOVE
Earlier this month I received a review copy of Talasi, A Story of Tenderness and Love. Written by Ellen S. Cromwell and illustrated by Desiree Sterbini, it purports to be about a Hopi child. The author is not Native.
Here's some of my notes:
Page 6
Talasi is the little girl's name, which, the author tells us "comes from corn tassel flowers that surround her pueblo home in Arizona."
I think readers are meant to think that her name may be a Hopi name. Let's pause, though, and think about that. The word tassel is an English word. The Hopi have their own language, and likely have a word for tassel. Wouldn't the child's name reflect that word rather than the English one?
As regular readers of American Indians in Children's Literature know, my grandfather is Hopi. I've been to Hopi. Homes on the mesas aren't surrounded by corn fields. The mesas are, so maybe that is what the author means, but written as-is, it reminds me more of farms in the midwest where homes are surrounded by corn fields.
Page 7
There's an error about materials used to build homes. The text says that "dwellings" (that word, by the way, sounds like an anthropologist, not a storyteller) are made from "adobe stone and clay." That ought to be "dried bricks and adobe clay" as stated in the "About the Hopis" at the end of the book.
We read that the best part of "multi-level living" is that Talasi can climb up and down a ladder. Sounds odd to me... let's think about a child in the midwest living in a two-story house. Is that child likely to say going up and down the stairs is the best thing about living in that multi-level home? I doubt it. Presenting that activity as a favorite thing for Talasi to do sounds very much like an outsider's imaginings of what life is like for a Hopi child. I suppose it is possible, but, not likely.
Page 10
The illustration shows Talasi and her grandmother, who sits in a rocking chair. The wall behind them has a six-paned glass window... which strikes me as an inconsistency. So does Talasi lying on the floor. It reminds me of a modern day house (again, in the Midwest) more than it does a Hopi home at one of the mesas. It also makes me wonder about the time period for this story.
On that page Talasi's grandmother tells her that she's going to move to a new home and that she'll go to a school to learn things that she (the grandmother) can no longer teach her. This foreshadows what is to come: Talasi's grandmother is going to die and upon her death, Talasi and her mom are going to move away to a city.
Page 14-15
On this page we have a double paged spread showing a city with tall buildings and bright lights. I wonder if it is Phoenix? And again I wonder about the time period for the story.
Page 16
Talasi goes to school but feels out of place. The text says that there are things to play with, but "no Katsina dolls to comfort her." Reading that, I hit the pause button. This, again, feels very much like an outsider voice. A "Katsina doll" isn't a plaything in the way that sentence suggests.
Page 18
Talasi brings a Katsina doll into the classroom. She wants to share it, and a story about it. I find that page especially troubling. It makes me wonder if Cromwell and Sterbini submitted this project to the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office. The acknowledgements page in the front of the book thanks Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa, the archivist at HCPO, for his "generous attention." His name there suggests that he endorsed Cromwell's book, but "generous attention" gives me pause. Given the care with which the HCPO protects Hopi culture from appropriation and misrepresentation, I doubt that HCPO approved what I see on page 18.
That said, the way that Talasi tells that story sounds--again--very much like an adult who is an outsider rather than how a Hopi child would speak.
I have too many concerns about the content of Talasi, A Story of Tenderness and Love. If I hear from any of the people in the Acknowledgements, telling me that they do recommend it, I'll be back to say so.
Here's some of my notes:
Page 6
Talasi is the little girl's name, which, the author tells us "comes from corn tassel flowers that surround her pueblo home in Arizona."
I think readers are meant to think that her name may be a Hopi name. Let's pause, though, and think about that. The word tassel is an English word. The Hopi have their own language, and likely have a word for tassel. Wouldn't the child's name reflect that word rather than the English one?
As regular readers of American Indians in Children's Literature know, my grandfather is Hopi. I've been to Hopi. Homes on the mesas aren't surrounded by corn fields. The mesas are, so maybe that is what the author means, but written as-is, it reminds me more of farms in the midwest where homes are surrounded by corn fields.
Page 7
There's an error about materials used to build homes. The text says that "dwellings" (that word, by the way, sounds like an anthropologist, not a storyteller) are made from "adobe stone and clay." That ought to be "dried bricks and adobe clay" as stated in the "About the Hopis" at the end of the book.
We read that the best part of "multi-level living" is that Talasi can climb up and down a ladder. Sounds odd to me... let's think about a child in the midwest living in a two-story house. Is that child likely to say going up and down the stairs is the best thing about living in that multi-level home? I doubt it. Presenting that activity as a favorite thing for Talasi to do sounds very much like an outsider's imaginings of what life is like for a Hopi child. I suppose it is possible, but, not likely.
Page 10
The illustration shows Talasi and her grandmother, who sits in a rocking chair. The wall behind them has a six-paned glass window... which strikes me as an inconsistency. So does Talasi lying on the floor. It reminds me of a modern day house (again, in the Midwest) more than it does a Hopi home at one of the mesas. It also makes me wonder about the time period for this story.
On that page Talasi's grandmother tells her that she's going to move to a new home and that she'll go to a school to learn things that she (the grandmother) can no longer teach her. This foreshadows what is to come: Talasi's grandmother is going to die and upon her death, Talasi and her mom are going to move away to a city.
Page 14-15
On this page we have a double paged spread showing a city with tall buildings and bright lights. I wonder if it is Phoenix? And again I wonder about the time period for the story.
Page 16
Talasi goes to school but feels out of place. The text says that there are things to play with, but "no Katsina dolls to comfort her." Reading that, I hit the pause button. This, again, feels very much like an outsider voice. A "Katsina doll" isn't a plaything in the way that sentence suggests.
Page 18
Talasi brings a Katsina doll into the classroom. She wants to share it, and a story about it. I find that page especially troubling. It makes me wonder if Cromwell and Sterbini submitted this project to the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office. The acknowledgements page in the front of the book thanks Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa, the archivist at HCPO, for his "generous attention." His name there suggests that he endorsed Cromwell's book, but "generous attention" gives me pause. Given the care with which the HCPO protects Hopi culture from appropriation and misrepresentation, I doubt that HCPO approved what I see on page 18.
That said, the way that Talasi tells that story sounds--again--very much like an adult who is an outsider rather than how a Hopi child would speak.
***
Labels:
Ellen S. Cromwell,
not recommended,
Pub Year 2015,
Talasi
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Dear Teachers: An Open Letter about Images of Indians
November 17, 2015
Dear Teachers,
Each day when young children get home from school, parents ask how their day went and if they have any homework. For some parents, the homework their child brings home can be daunting because it has material on it that they haven't thought about in years. They have to "brush up" on it in order to help their children understand the concepts the child's homework is intended to reinforce. Some parents find homework annoying because it is so repetitive and their children could be doing something more engaging.
Last month on social media, Native parents circulated photos of worksheets and books their children were bringing home. Some of these photos were of cartoon-like images of Indians who greeted Columbus.
November is Native American month. Thanksgiving happens this month, too, so, some of the worksheets parents are sharing on social media are about Indians greeting the Pilgrims. Some just have random images of Indians on them because it is Native American month.
If I asked you, teachers, to look through your file of worksheets, some of you will see what I'm talking about. Smiling Indians handing corn to Pilgrims. Cute Indians sitting cross legged on the ground, tending a fire, next to a tipi. Color-by-number worksheets of Indians... We could go on and on, right?
For Native parents--and for non-Native parents who know these images are stereotypical--the homework itself is more than daunting or annoying. They know those worksheets carry messages of who or what Indians are supposed to be. They know those images are misinforming the children the worksheets are meant to educate. For them, these worksheets put them in a what-do-I-do about this moment. Some will point out the stereotypical image and, if needed, tell their child why it is stereotypical and not ok. Some will arrange to meet with the teacher. Some will express their frustration, with family and friends, in person and on social media. And some will keep silent because they fear that speaking to you, their child's teacher, will put their child in an awkward position.
For Native children, those images are one more silent assault on Native culture. These silent assaults, however, are ones their teachers are handing to them. My guess is that some of you, teachers, don't even notice those images on those worksheets.
I have empathy and respect for teachers. I taught elementary school in the 1980s. I know how hard it was, then, to work with the limited resources I had from the school itself, and from my own pocket. Teaching is even harder, today, than it was then. So I'm not writing this to make you feel bad.
I'm writing to ask you to take a few seconds to look--really look--at the worksheets you're going to use today, or tomorrow, or the next day, or any day. Do they have those images of Indians on them? If they do, set them aside.
A lot of you assume these worksheets and biased children's books don't matter because you believe there aren't any Native kids in your classroom. If you're basing that belief on an idea that Native people have dark skin, dark hair, high cheekbones, and personal names that sound Indian in some way, you're reflecting a stereotype.
I don't say any of this to shame you, or to embarrass you.
We all have a lot of ignorance about people who are unlike ourselves. I have had many moments of being embarrassed! I, for example, loved Five Chinese Brothers. I have very warm memories of reading it--memories that go all the way back to my early childhood years. I carried that book in my heart for decades. Then, in a graduate school course about children's literature, that book was one we looked at, and I realized how racist its depictions are... and I let it go.
I hope you'll read this letter as a virtual hug, of sorts, from a fellow educator who--like you--cares about teaching and what we teach to children. We're all learning, every day, how to do it better. I welcome any questions you have--about worksheets, or books. My entire website is for you. It's all free. For you.
Sincerely,
Debbie Reese
American Indians in Children's Literature
P.S. (added an hour after I hit upload on my letter):
My husband suggested I say a bit more about what teachers can do instead of the usual Thanksgiving activities. So! If you're working with very young children, remember your training. Early childhood education is centered on teaching children in a here-and-now framework. For them, the long-ago (when colonization began) is not best practice. For children at that age, if you want to do something about the holiday, take the what-I'm-thankful approach instead of a usual Pilgrims and Indians ones. Because you're working on their fine motor skills and use craft projects for that purpose, you can do arts activities about turkeys. For older children (3rd grade and up), check out American Indian Perspectives on Thanksgiving. If you want to take some time to unlearn what you've learned about Thanksgiving, you can start with a fellow teacher's post about Thanksgiving books: Kara Stewart's "Children's Books about Thanksgiving."
Dear Teachers,
Each day when young children get home from school, parents ask how their day went and if they have any homework. For some parents, the homework their child brings home can be daunting because it has material on it that they haven't thought about in years. They have to "brush up" on it in order to help their children understand the concepts the child's homework is intended to reinforce. Some parents find homework annoying because it is so repetitive and their children could be doing something more engaging.
Last month on social media, Native parents circulated photos of worksheets and books their children were bringing home. Some of these photos were of cartoon-like images of Indians who greeted Columbus.
November is Native American month. Thanksgiving happens this month, too, so, some of the worksheets parents are sharing on social media are about Indians greeting the Pilgrims. Some just have random images of Indians on them because it is Native American month.
If I asked you, teachers, to look through your file of worksheets, some of you will see what I'm talking about. Smiling Indians handing corn to Pilgrims. Cute Indians sitting cross legged on the ground, tending a fire, next to a tipi. Color-by-number worksheets of Indians... We could go on and on, right?
For Native parents--and for non-Native parents who know these images are stereotypical--the homework itself is more than daunting or annoying. They know those worksheets carry messages of who or what Indians are supposed to be. They know those images are misinforming the children the worksheets are meant to educate. For them, these worksheets put them in a what-do-I-do about this moment. Some will point out the stereotypical image and, if needed, tell their child why it is stereotypical and not ok. Some will arrange to meet with the teacher. Some will express their frustration, with family and friends, in person and on social media. And some will keep silent because they fear that speaking to you, their child's teacher, will put their child in an awkward position.
For Native children, those images are one more silent assault on Native culture. These silent assaults, however, are ones their teachers are handing to them. My guess is that some of you, teachers, don't even notice those images on those worksheets.
I have empathy and respect for teachers. I taught elementary school in the 1980s. I know how hard it was, then, to work with the limited resources I had from the school itself, and from my own pocket. Teaching is even harder, today, than it was then. So I'm not writing this to make you feel bad.
I'm writing to ask you to take a few seconds to look--really look--at the worksheets you're going to use today, or tomorrow, or the next day, or any day. Do they have those images of Indians on them? If they do, set them aside.
A lot of you assume these worksheets and biased children's books don't matter because you believe there aren't any Native kids in your classroom. If you're basing that belief on an idea that Native people have dark skin, dark hair, high cheekbones, and personal names that sound Indian in some way, you're reflecting a stereotype.
I don't say any of this to shame you, or to embarrass you.
We all have a lot of ignorance about people who are unlike ourselves. I have had many moments of being embarrassed! I, for example, loved Five Chinese Brothers. I have very warm memories of reading it--memories that go all the way back to my early childhood years. I carried that book in my heart for decades. Then, in a graduate school course about children's literature, that book was one we looked at, and I realized how racist its depictions are... and I let it go.
I hope you'll read this letter as a virtual hug, of sorts, from a fellow educator who--like you--cares about teaching and what we teach to children. We're all learning, every day, how to do it better. I welcome any questions you have--about worksheets, or books. My entire website is for you. It's all free. For you.
Sincerely,
Debbie Reese
American Indians in Children's Literature
P.S. (added an hour after I hit upload on my letter):
My husband suggested I say a bit more about what teachers can do instead of the usual Thanksgiving activities. So! If you're working with very young children, remember your training. Early childhood education is centered on teaching children in a here-and-now framework. For them, the long-ago (when colonization began) is not best practice. For children at that age, if you want to do something about the holiday, take the what-I'm-thankful approach instead of a usual Pilgrims and Indians ones. Because you're working on their fine motor skills and use craft projects for that purpose, you can do arts activities about turkeys. For older children (3rd grade and up), check out American Indian Perspectives on Thanksgiving. If you want to take some time to unlearn what you've learned about Thanksgiving, you can start with a fellow teacher's post about Thanksgiving books: Kara Stewart's "Children's Books about Thanksgiving."
Labels:
Columbus Day,
stereotypes,
thanksgiving,
Worksheets
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