LITR 4332: American Minority Literature

Sample Student Final Exam Answers 2005

Sample answers to question on 
Native American and Mexican American narrative

Assignment description: Referring to appropriate objectives and texts, write a complete essay explaining how Native America and Mexican America may be considered minority ethnic cultures and the special narratives these cultures have developed in response to their conditions.

Following are complete essays and selections. Selections are indicated by the presence of ellipses [ . . . ].

Initials within brackets following selections--e. g., [JP]--credit authorship.

Title: Narratives of Ethnicity:  Native Americans and Mexican-Americans

            Like African-Americans, both Native Americans and Mexican-Americans are considered minority cultures instead of immigrants.  The minority concept has to do with a power relationship modeled by Native Americans and Mexican Americans and their historical relation to the dominant American culture.  These ethnic groups differ from the dominant culture in language, tradition, culture and religion.   In respect to history, neither of these groups traveled to the white world and asked to be a part of the dream.  The anglos, rather, encroached on land held by these indigenous peoples and their descendents and drove them into areas of concentrated populations.  The invaders became the dominant culture that made the acquisition of land its primary concern and ignored the needs of the people that were driven from the land to make room for expansion.

            In the case of Native Americans, the first European settlers that came to what is now America attempted to live in harmony with the simple people who inhabited this land before the white man even knew of its existence.  But, as the population of anglos on this soil grew, so did the need to control the Indian population.  Since they could not speak English, the Native American were seen as different, and thus to be feared.  They were excluded from citizenry because of their lack of European ancestry, and made to be foreigners in their own land.  They became choiceless and voiceless, involuntary participants in the American Dream. 

Native Americans are traditionally an oral culture.  There was, until recently, very little activity that resembled written texts.  All the stories told were from an oral tradition.  Written cultures are typically associated with a dynamic, modern culture.  Native Americans, in order to preserve their history, have had to adapt and began to transcribe their oral traditions into the written word.  Since then, oral traditions have disappeared.  Therefore, literacy is a valuable tool that has allowed part of Native American culture to survive.

Government and missionary schools were the vehicle for assimilation of Native America’s youth into the dominant culture through literacy.  When Zitkala-Sa writes of her experience in American Indian Stories with just such a school, she tells of an experience that is not a positive one.  She was coaxed away from her traditional family with promises of a better world.  Her natural intellect caused her to be curious about the white world, so she was an easy target.  However, this technique of luring children into the schools causes them to be alienated from their families, thus it strikes at the heart of traditional culture.  It was a painful rift, and when the children returned to their families, they were torn as to which culture was the correct on to model their own lives after.  Literacy was a useful outcome in this situation, but the children lost their sense of tradition.

            In response to the devastating losses experienced by the native populations, the Native American narratives carry a common theme of “loss and survival.”  In the light of devastating losses of land, population, wildlife, these people struggle with the future and their own survival.  Reservation narratives such as told by Sherman Alexie in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven are stereotypical of reservation life.  Since he himself has lived this life, he can use these stereotypes and justify them.  He writes about drinking, poverty, apathy, and lack of education, but he personalizes it in order to bring the situation to life and make the characters real to the reader.  The everyday struggle and painful situations faced by the Native Americans on the reservation makes the reader feel anxious and sympathetic to their plight.  The hip, postmodern style he uses to tell his story makes his narrative easy to understand. 

            Objective 3 compares and contrasts the American Dream narrative (voluntary participation, forgetting the past) with minority narratives (involuntary participation, connecting to the past).  Both of these authors write about loss and survival.  For them and their people, buying into the American Dream proved to be a nightmare.   They were always in opposition with the dominant culture.  In fact, the things the dominant culture dreamed and created, served to destroy the Native American way of life. Zitkala-Sa fought her whole adult life for the rights of Native Americans.  She learned much from her experiences with the dominant culture and “language becomes the tool for articulating the tension she is to experience throughout her life between her heritage with its imperative of tradition and the inevitable pressure of acculturation” (xi).  From an early age, she is torn between two cultures.  Sherman Alexie does not write in an autobiographical voice like Zitkala-Sa, but he is not any less of an activist for the survival of Native American traditions.  On the reservation, his characters maintain their traditional culture through storytelling.  He tells a story about Victor, who tells stories about storytellers.  Thomas is a storyteller, as is his father.  The elders on the reservation tell stories.  The way to survive is to keep traditions alive.

Similarly, tradition is also an important part of Mexican-American culture.  Because of the traditional practice of having difficulty making decisions, they are considered the “ambivalent minority.”  Due to a shared history between Mexico and the United States, it is difficult for the dominant culture to view Mexican-Americans as minorities.  Since the USA is a society formed by immigration, they tend to view Mexican-Americans in this same light.  But the truth is that western expansion pushed these people off of land that belonged to their ancestors for generations.  When the land was purchased or battle-won, some Mexican citizens chose to stay on this side of the Rio Grande.  They had more choice in the matter than did the Native Americans, but they are still considered involuntary participants in the American Dream.  Even though they did not travel far from their traditional homeland, they still suffer social dislocation.

This geographical nearness to Mexico contributes to the ambivalence of Mexican-Americans to commit to assimilation and acculturation.  These themes are prominent in Mexican-American literature.  For instance, Rudolfo Anaya gives Tony much to be ambivalent about.  He is forced to make choices between his mother’s and father’s families, whether or not to be a priest, whether he should only believe in one God.  His spiritual journey is symbolic of the question of whether he should assimilate or rebel against expectations.  He is ambivalent about choosing between a traditional or contemporary culture. 

In response to identity conflicts, Mexican-American narratives employ syncretism to bridge conflicts and fuse identities.  For example, in the story of Juan Diego and the Virgin of Guadalupe, a young Indian man (indigenous) encounters God in the form of the Virgin on a hilltop.  This symbolizes a blending of traditional beliefs with more contemporary ones.  It brings together the two elements of mestizo blood:  the European influence, and that of the indigenous peoples.  It helps the two sides bridge conflict by finding a common ground on which the two sides can relate because Hispanic identity is not identified by race, but rather more by language, religion, and geography.

Mexican Americans fit the minority model because the United States conquered and annexed parts of Mexico much as it conquered parts of Native America.  There is less need to assimilate in the form of speaking the English language, and many wish to retain the Spanish language, especially in the home.  The size of the Spanish-speaking community makes retention of the home language more likely.  Cultural pressures to maintain traditional roles, drop-out rates, teen pregnancy rates, are indications of a minority status and may limit individual members of the group from becoming upwardly mobile. 

These two ethnic cultures have each survived using their own modes.  As AM, from 2001, says “The narratives for these two cultures help to bring their cultures together and bind their efforts of survival.  Both the Native Americans and the Mexican Americans use these stories as a reminder of their pass and an encouragement for their future.”  They have developed their own methods, sometimes blending ideas and cultures, but they have both survived. [JH]

Native and Mexican Americans as Minority Cultures

            Native Americans and Mexican American Americans share in the minority experience of their cultures in comparison to the dominant society in America.  Native Americans, unlike the African Americans, whom were brought to a different country against their will, were forced off their land against their will.  Same scenario for the Mexican Americans who were taken over by the dominant American group by actions such as the Louisiana Purchase, and other southern wars.  These demonstrations of power forced the much of the southern Hispanic culture to give up control and transferred land to the dominant power, hence forming southern states such as New Mexico, Texas, and California. Both the Mexican and Native Americans struggle with the choice to assimilate into the dominant culture’s society or to save their cultural heritage.  Some assimilate for reasons of social and financial, while others try to assimilate yet saving cultural aspects of their primary cultural heritage.

            The Native Indians were forced to move, while the dominant society took over power and control, taking away from them their culture’s way of life, by killing the buffalos moving them to reservations.  The Indians, although they were the first “Americans” were forced to give up their land and way of life and eventually had no choice.  The Indians tried to hold on to their beliefs, while adapting to a mode of survival in a land overtaken by the Europeans.  Many Indians hoped the dominant society would destroy itself and the buffaloes would return to roam the land.

            The Indians had an oral tradition of story telling with myths and legends, capturing the origins and creations of the universe.  The emergence and the earth-diver stories are symbolic of the Indians relation to the earth.  Their oral stories held that animal figures dove into the ocean and would create.  In addition, the trickster story is popular with the Native American culture.  The Indians lived in close relation with the earth and animals and these become apparent in the symbols and myths of their heritage.

            Zitkala-Sa, author of American Indian Stories, writes somewhat of memoirs on her experience with leaving her mother from the free plains of her child hood and attending the boarding schools ran by Europeans.  She captures her struggling with leaving her heritage, her family, and her home behind to “assimilate” into the ways of the “white man.”  She did not want to leave her mother, and thought of her much, as she was alone as a child in the boarding school.  Her mother thought it best for her to go to school to learn to read and write. These stories represent examples of the feelings of the Native American Indian in their struggles to assimilate and learn the ways of the “white man” as their land was being overtaken, and the choice to live freely as they had was now being taken away.  Eventually they would have no choice, hence the term minority, as in relation to the dominant power of the European.

            Although the Indians were forced into a position of minority, their hope for their people continued.  In Sherman Alexie’s, The Lone Ranger and Tonto fistfight in Heaven, when Victor talks of the “salmon coming back,” represents the Indians belief that they would survive.  Learning to read and write would give them the means to write of their experiences of loss and survival in such books as American Indian Stories, as well as poems published in Unsettling America.  Even after they lost their ways of living with the earth, the Indians would try to hold on as best they could to their heritage and beliefs.  The Indians, through the oral tradition, are great oracle poets, and through this medium carried their feeling of loss and strength to carry on, despite opposition from the dominant society.  They would not forget there past!

            The Mexican American culture also suffers form ambivalence.  This culture is mixed in their feelings as to joining or resisting the dominant culture.  The Hispanic culture is full of family, religious, and symbolic values that are important to them.  The Hispanic culture has done well to hold on to their heritage, while assimilating into the mainstream American and work to make a better life for their families.  Bless Me, Ultima, written by Rudolfo Anaya, is well representative of dualism between religion, family, and cultural values and symbolism.

             Anaya’s novel follows a young Hispanic boy through his life growing up and the struggles of his Hispanic culture.  Does the family stay in the Llano, or they move to California?  Will he be a priest or follow the ways of his father?  The book also represents the symbolism of the Mexican folk tale of the golden carp with the religious symbols of Catholicism.  Synchronism plays a vital role in contrasting the symbols and beliefs of their heritage with other influences of cultures.  The text represents symbols in dreams as the boy sleeps and Anaya’s style is conducive to say he is “in” the story to give a voice to the challenges of the Mexican Americans experiencing the feelings of being a minority and their feelings of holding on their heritage.

            The Mexican American people represent a population rich in values, culture, religion, and historical significance.  The American Indians, as well, unique in their family, spiritual, ancestral beliefs and values: assimilate, while holding on to their past cultural values.  Unlike the European culture, who chooses to sever their ties with the past the Indian and Mexican Americans choose to hold on to their heritage.  To overlook the significance and contributions of such a special people would “short change” one’s full literary, sociological, cultural, and human experience.  Through literary expression, persons gain an understanding and appreciation for every culture, whether one chooses to forget their past, or preferably, to hold on to traditions and symbols representative of one’s heritage and past roots of life and culture. [JM]

Essay Two: Defining American Indian and Mexican American Texts

            As a group, the Native Americans are generally identified in our current accumulation of history to be, perhaps, the most disenfranchised minority group within the boundaries of the United States.  Crudely summed up, their history through current perspectives may be stated as, “We came, we took, deal with it”.  Unique to the Indian experience, apart from other minority groups, is that they never had to leave their home in order for these injustices to happen. 

            In Zitkala-Ša’s memoirs, American Indian Stories, the tale begins with her childhood.  While it might seem like a common literary device, the reminiscing of her past is crucial to understand what life her ancestors had and why the eventual loss is all the more troubling.  The first characters the reader meets are not people, but a footpath and a river.  “A footpath wound its way gently down the sloping land till it reached the broad river bottom; creeping through the long swamp grasses…” (7).  The reader should be careful to noticed that it is not a “winding footpath” (that is, using a verb like an adjective) but a footpath that has done something; that is, “wound”.   Similarly, the river is not just taking up space and flowing down, but it is creeping through the grasses.  

Both are places of movement and metaphors for change or distance but through their personification and later sentimental connection, Zitkala-Ša has essentially enlarged her cast of characters.  By doing so, the reader should begin to recognize (at least on some subconscious level) that the loss of the Native Americans was not simply being forced to move about and confine to the rules of a different society.  Instead, it was also the loss of a place and an idea of those places that was stripped away.  In some ways, American Indian texts also represent the voiceless/choiceless status of the land as well.  The loss of these places ultimately causes a deep sorrow that is expressed nostalgically, as if they have lost a great friend forever.

Regarding American Indian literature, one often notices such instances of places being referred to with personification.  To simply say that Americans “took” the land of the Indians doesn’t quite cover the depth of their loss.  Involuntary participation, for the Indians, isn’t truly accurate if one considers the inevitability of two cultures meeting one another.  But coupled with the forced loss of land and two meager options for survival (a half-life on a reservation or a separation from the past in the modern world), the American Indian experience certainly becomes involuntary participation.

In Sherman Alexie’s Lone Ranger…, the majority of his tribe are painted as dispassionate, listless, or in complete denial.  Whenever they look around their reservation, all they see are things worth complaining about.  Such is the case with the traffic light.  Adrian and Victor sit on the porch and talk about how all the great basketball players in the tribe seem to fail before making it big.  At the same time, both characters comment on the light that doesn’t work, which is located in the middle of nowhere.  There is no enthusiasm towards the future, only the past.  The closest the reader gets to seeing the two main characters look towards the future with any kind of hope, is when Victor leaves his door open for “some crazy Indian” who might need a place to stay (52).  Even more telling is the sad destruction of Samuel who has lost his job and becomes so depressed that he lies under a train the same night (138).  When survival is possible, it seems to be loaded down with cynicism and disinterest.

In contrast to the overwhelming spiritual loss of the Native Americans and the brutal torment that gave rise to resistance by the African Americans, Mexican Americans face a problem that sometimes mirrors an immigrant culture more than minority cultures.  Many, if not most, modern Mexican Americans (the past 75 years or so) have come to the United States voluntarily.  However, because their native home is so close, many suffer a cultural anxiety.  The combination of America’s great diversity, due mostly to a culture of immigration, and the powerful pull of the ideals from the Founding Fathers (i.e. no man is the obligatory servant of another), eventually forces a person to accept the dominant culture, or remain tied to his past at the price of never fully integrating.

The culture of the Latin American countries is similar, but not identical to the history of cultures in the United States.  The colonization of European (predominantly Spanish) settlers eventually mixed with the Indian cultures that had existed for thousands of years.  For an immigrant to the United States, the cultural identity crisis happens on a fairly large scale.  That is, the entire body of citizens believes/expects an immigrant to eventually participate in the culture that has become “America”.  For those of Hispanic descent, the national-identity crisis is still evident but perhaps more importantly, they must also confront this on a personal level. 

In Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima, Tony Marez constantly witnesses these cultural conflicts between his parents, his friends, his neighbors and within himself.  His mother is clearly a product of an Indian culture and roots her actions with an earthly spirituality.  On the other hand, his father is a once proud descendent of the conquistadors, who openly believe the land is a thing to tame, own and use.  Unlike the American Indian stories, there is no problem of a stolen future.  Instead, the characters seem to have too many choices presented by their pasts, their families expectations and the collision of cultures.  For those of Hispanic origin, the question is never a black or white “assimilation OR resistance” but “how can I have both?”

Both groups are worth studying under the scope of minority literature because they deal with the issue of choice.  The ideals of American are firmly rooted in the availability of choice and independence.  Yet these two groups, whether through the forced submission of our past or the implied adherence of the present, both seem to lack the choice that, fundamentally, Americans should hold dear. [KB]

Essay #2

Playing the Name Game and Creating a Global Framework

            The terms are plentiful: Indian, Native American. Or Mexican American, Hispanic, Mexican, Latino, Chicano. Each classification is ambiguous as the next when in the vernacular of the uninformed. There are certain distinctions to these groups—some of which are obvious while others require the interpretation of a political correctness professional. The terms often get tossed around interchangeably without regard to the individual and the identity the words are often used to define. The discussions in the second half of the course helped create a better understanding of how and why racial categories get employed (often mistakenly), while the texts in the second half help the reader understand the nature of racial ambivalence. Sometimes members in these groups consider themselves immigrants, while others feel like minorities (the ambivalent category is somewhere in the middle).

            Objective 1 is the perfect starting point in the discussion of Native American culture (specifically, literature). The minority concept is best understood relative to the interaction that group or individual has with the dominant American culture. In the case of Native Americans, this participation was involuntary, and the result was a nightmare.

            The works of Zitkala-Sa are an indicative story of involuntary participation with the culture. Her story is of the struggles related with assimilation, whether forced or voluntary. American Indian Stories has numerous examples of the affect the dominant culture had on the American Indian. Zitkala-Sa tells of when the white people at her school forcefully cut off her long, thick braids, which made her believe that she had lost her spirit (56). This is an example of how forced contact can be dehumanizing. Zitkala-Sa tells the story of how the government and missionary schools worked as the mechanism for assimilation. No mater how well-intentioned the schools, the results of the interaction between the schools and the students were often catastrophic.

            Objective 3b (on the loss and survival of the American Indian) is also an essential element of American Indian Stories. The notion of loss and survival extends seamlessly into Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.

            There are many characters in Alexie’s book who deal with loss. Take for an example the man loses his job on his birthday and succumbs for the first time to the temptation to drink. When forced to deal with such a great loss, the man felt like he was out of options, and the bar felt like the only comforting environment after leaving work for the last time. Ironically, this particular story helps break down the notion (perpetuated by many) that American Indians and alcoholism goes hand in hand. This story of a man who loses his job and loses hope humanizes a group with whom most people have minimal contact. This and other stories in Alexie’s book painfully tell the story of the daily struggles American Indians face when confronting loss and attempting to survive.

            Bless Me, Ultima is another example of the difficult task of uncovering one’s identity. Antonio never really feels like a Marez or a Luna. His concept of self and the destiny that existed for him existed somewhere in between the two contrasting personae. Antonio is exposed to so many contrasting elements that it is very difficult for him to understand what his own identity was. Identity is a central theme in this work, and in any discussion of the final minority group in the course: Mexican Americans. Even the name “Mexican-American” represents dialectic tension (especially considering the geo-historical relationship that turned parts of Mexico into American land). This is an example of why the racial and ethnic boundaries that are applied so effectively to other groups (eg. Black, White, Asian) fail to work on Latinos and Hispanics. Although there will never be enough boxes on the Census to cover every identity under the Hispanic umbrella, there is much value to be gained by discussing the ethnic identities that are included in being Puerto Rican-American, Cuban-American, Spanish-American, etc. The language used to describe individuals and groups is ever-changing, and designed to adapt.

            Coupled with this is the physical racial ambiguity that is associated with people who fit under the umbrella term “Hispanic” (a word which itself is a misnomer if you take into consideration the huge groups of people whose roots, traced through Central and South America, do not lead to Spain). This is all very essential in creating a new racial framework, where deference is given to the individual in defining his or her race and ethnicity. On a macro level, reading books like American Indian Stories and The Lone Ranger and Tonto helps create the view that Native Americans as individuals who belong to a global community while possessing a very unique individual identity (be it Cherokee, Lakota, etc.). The creation stories discussed in this class serve the same purpose for the recognizing the importance of religion in spirituality in the global community. This is why American Minority Literature has the ability to help create a better sense of what it means to be a minority, and what it means (for me, personally) to be a minority in America surrounded by so many different unique members of the global community. [JC]

The Mexican-American and Native American Narrative

The similarities between the Mexican and Native American Narrative and identity lies in the fact that both groups at one time or another had occupied the lands that now they have to immigrate to. Other similarities relate to the fact that both groups have dealt with the dominant culture in ways that often times combine aspects of their own culture and religious beliefs and those of the dominant culture. Depending upon past experiences, such as the mestizo, there may be other cultural combinations that create new and different cultures, that have significant aspects of both cultures involved. This is called syncretism, and is an important part of cultures combining successfully.

Within the Mexican-American Narrative, immigrants come here to improve their economic well- being, and in doing so, suffer some cultural dislocation. This dislocation differs from the typical immigrant narrative in that they feel this dislocation more severely because they actually have no interest in leaving their past behind completely. They do not feel the need, nor do they actually want to assimilate completely into the dominant culture. They are here for economic purposes, and generally no others. They are the 'Ambivalent Minority". Objective 4 describes this economic gain versus cultural isolation/loss, and the creation of extended families, that cross international borders, as described in Objective 6 is the resultant and necessary conclusion.

The Native American Narrative is similar yet also differs in other ways to the Mexican-American Narrative. Primarily in the fact that they deal with the fact that much of their actual home land and many of their peoples were lost as a result of the dominating cultures destructive tendencies. This certainly does not create an 'Ambivalent" group of people when someone steals their land and kills them off by the hundred of thousands. This does resemble certain areas of the mexican american narrative, as many areas of the US was in reality areas previously owned by Mexico.

Certain examples of syncretism are created as a result of these combining of cultures. The legend of the "Miraculous Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe".is a combination of images of the dominating culture, the Virgin Mary, and those of the Indian culture, which later became a central icon of the Mexican American culture. The story of Juan Diego and the brown skinned Virgin de Guadalupe is a good example of this syncretism. Other combinations are reveraled in "Bless me Ultima" as catholic and magical, potentially paganistic aspects seemingly wash together without apparent conflict. The Golden Carp symbolism certainly has no reference to catholic, perhaps other that the "darwin fish", but again blends to seemingly obtuse concepts into a symbolic icon, creating a meaning that different traditions can potentially offer equally illuminating valid points. Another potentially conflicting symbolic aspect in "Bless me Ultima" is Ultima's owl as symbol of Ultima’s magic, and Antonio’s aspirations of being a priest. It shows the possibility of persons drawing from seemingly different cultural traditions, and creating a more complex and adaptable personal identity.

All religions, and people are a synthesis of genetics and cultural ideas. No one person or religious or cultural tradition is pure in and of itself. The purity of a given culture is the version that we are most familiar with. It has undoubtedly undergone many metamorphoses prior to our descriptions of an individual or cultural institution as being "pure". True purity does not exist. We are all part of something that was indeed connected to a single source, be it genetic or cultural, and the concept syncretism demonstrate this within our comparatively short time period of several hundred years from our class readings. [KP]