LITR 4332: American Minority
Literature
Sample Student Poetry Presentation 2000
Victoria Lena Manyarrows
"Lakota Sister / Cherokee Mother"
Unsettling America, pp. 286-87
Reader: Diane Tincher
Respondent: Phyllis Alexander
Background Information: Victoria Manyarrows was born in North Dakota, got her Master's Degree in Social work at San Francisco State University, and worked in the San Francisco community cultural centers. Victoria makes the following statement about her writing career:
My work reflects my background and work as a Tsalagi / Eastern Cherokee / Italian lesbian woman . . . . My work also reflects my many years of experience working as a social worker, community organizer, writer, artist and administrator in community arts, education, health and social service programs in the San Francisco Bay Area. For me, writing and visual arts has always been a vehicle for political and personal change, as well as spiritual exploration and expression. When I was in my early 20’s, writing helped me to integrate my spiritual identity and sense of self with my political awakening and involvement in the feminist, American Indian and lesbian movements and communities, in particular. Today I continue to write and complete art pieces which incorporate my writing, not only to release the worlds inside and give myself a voice, but also to encourage and educate, share and affirm the experiences of those who may read, visually enjoy and/or listen to my work – and who also have voices to be heard.
Course Objectives:
Objective 4: Assimilation or Resistance: The mother is assimilating to the dominant culture by leaving her past/Indian heritage behind her, and the daughter is resisting the dominant culture by reconnecting with her Indian heritage.
Objective 2: Narratives of ethnicity used as a means of defining minority categories: The use of the Indian Creation Story theme.
Interpretation: Mother and daughter are from the same place, but the mother does not want to accept her daughter as her own flesh and blood. The daughter says that she is a daughter of her mother’s people; I think that she may be implying that she does not see herself as her mother’s daughter because her mother has been telling her that she is not really her daughter. The daughter then seems to be explaining why her mother wants to deny her as her daughter. The daughter has the "straight hair" and "warrior spirit" of her mother’s people and this probably makes the mother feel uncomfortable because she has "learned to deride / deny" her people. The mother is trying to become a modern woman by denying her Indian heritage. The daughter feels a deep connection to her mother’s people and embraces her Indian heritage. So, because of this the mother would rather believe that her daughter is "as stranger / exchanged in a hospital bed / lost in a winter storm."
Style:
-Free Verse
-The poem is completely void of any uppercase letters.
Discussion Questions:
- In the third stanza the daughter says that her mother "could not pretend;" what does she mean by this?
- What significance does the title, "Lakota Sister / Cherokee Mother," have?
Discussion:
Nancy: Manyarrow’s use of only lower case letters is indicative of her personality
David: related creation story to trickster
Billie Jean: mother’s telling the creation stories maintaining the Indian heritage
Jodie: discusses form and free verse could be read without indented lines – form says that she (the daughter) could stand alone from the mother
Jupiter: two poems in one
Dr. White: poem consists of two voices in the poem and in the title
Nancy: different voices seem to invoice an argument
Diane: when someone of a minority culture assimilates, he or she is not accepted by either minority or dominant culture
Phyllis: mother tried to pretend to be other than she was.