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LITR 4231 Early American Literature 2012 Student Midterm Samples 2. Short essay (4-6 paragraphs) on 1 of 2 options (or combinations as inspired) :
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Rochelle LaTouche
Native Americans: An Old Story
"And then more recently,
we had some people
who dressed up as Indians
to make it more authentic,
30 you understand, real
people."
"Yes," I said.
"Well," she said,
"that didn't seem right,
but we had a problem.
35 There was a lack of Indians."
"Yes," I said.
"This year, we wanted to do it right.
We have looked hard and high
for Indians but there didn't seem
40 to be any in this part of
"Yes," I said.
"We want to make it real, you understand,
put a real Indian on a float,
not just a paper mache dummy
45 or an Anglo dressed as
an Indian
but a real Indian with feathers and paint.
Maybe even a medicine man."
"Yes," I said.
I chose a passage from Simon J.
Ortiz’s poem “A New Story” because it really opened my eyes to how misinformed I
have been about the Native Americans my entire life. In my school days, the most
we learned about Native Americans was the idealized version of Thanksgiving and
about the Native Americans’ part in a few wars. After reading this poem,
La Relacion,
and parts of
A General History
of Virginia, my perception of the early
European colonists and the Native Americans was significantly altered. In this
poem, Ortiz displays the attitude of a recent Native American and the common
misconceptions Americans have about his culture.
In the first sentence of
this selection, a white woman is explaining that for the Frontier parade in her
home town, she used to have white people dress up as Native Americans to make
the parade “more authentic.” She said it made the Native Americans appear like
“real people.” This is the first offensive comment she makes about the Native
Americans because she is alienating them. All people are real people despite
their ethnicity. To this comment, the Native American narrator only says, “Yes.”
At this point, it is not clear if the narrator is frustrated or is encouraging
her to go on, but it is likely the first because he does not elaborate.
Then, the woman in the poem
continues to speak with the narrator and states that she is having trouble
finding Native Americans around where she is at. Well, the reason there is not
any Native Americans around “this part of
In the third piece of
this selection, the woman continues to justify her wanting a real Native
American in the parade. She claims she wants to make is as authentic as possible
by having a “real Indian with feathers and paint.” That whole comment is a
stereotype. From what I learned in my Early American Literature class, the Sioux
Indian is the main tribe who wore the headdresses with feathers and had face
paint. Other than that, not many of the tribes did. Once more, the narrator
replies “Yes.” After a while, the narrator’s short responses make the woman look
even more ignorant. Instead of him defending his culture, he just lets the woman
continue to display her misconceptions about Native Americans. It gives the poem
a bit of a humorous and sarcastic tone.
After reading this poem, I came to
the realization that Americans have not necessarily been taught “the right”
