LITR 4332: American Minority Literature

Rhonda Fisher

Loss, Survival and Ambivalence in Minority America

Just as African Americans are considered a minority because they were brought to the United States and forced into slavery involuntarily, so are American Indians and Mexican Americans considered minorities. According to course objective 1a, one of the criteria that determines if a specific ethnic group is a minority is whether or not that group of people were voluntary or involuntary participants in American life. While African Americans were brought to the United States from other countries involuntarily and against their will, Mexican Americans and American Indians were similarly forced to become a part of America due to the fact that America came to them. American Indians, or Native Americans, were the inhabitants of the lands now known as America long before Christopher Columbus ever “discovered” America. Like the Native Americans, Mexican Americans also inhabited America before so-called “Americans” did. Because large geographic areas of the United States, including Texas, used to comprise another country—Mexico—natives of these lands were also forced to become a part of what is now America. Neither the American Indian nor the Mexican American chose to travel to America in hopes of finding a new, prosperous life, as many immigrants did. In fact, neither of these peoples “traveled” to America at all; yet America, nonetheless, came to them.  

While the dominant culture in America participates in the idea of the “American Dream,” Native Americans and Mexican Americans have been forced to participate in a different kind of life in order to cope, which can be demonstrated through their literature. The Native American Indian narrative is centered around the idea of loss and survival. While immigrants choose to leave the past behind, just as they left their old world behind to start anew in America, Native Americans must hold on to the past as a means of survival. Native Americans used to be the only inhabitants of America, but lost most of their land and much of their people with the European “discovery of America.”

Due to the circumstances they have been forced into by the dominant American culture, American Indians do not have much to look forward to and they do not have many prospects in life, so they find themselves forever looking backward to the past as a means of survival. One example of how Native Americans consistently look to the past rather than to the future can be found in the North American Indian Origin Stories. “Prologue,” the written by N. Scott Momaday describes how “they came out into the light, one after another, until the way out was lost to them. Loss was in the order of things, then, from the beginning.” With this Kwuda emergence story we are given, first, an example of how Native Americans always look to the past for survival; there are numerous creation, origin and emergence stories on which the American Indians rely. Additionally, we also see how, for the American Indian, loss was in the cards for them from the beginning. Momaday tells of how the way out was “lost to them” and how “loss was in the order of things” from the beginning. This emergence story makes it seem as though the American Indians were predestined to endure a life of loss, and the story is one of those legacies of their past that allow them to cope with such loss.

Another example of the American Indian’s idea of looking to the past and loss and survival can be found with Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. In “Imagining the Reservation,” Victor states, “The reservation doesn’t sing anymore but the songs still hang in the air.” What he means by this is that the old way of the Native American exists no longer. American Indians are no longer free to roam the land or kill the buffalo. Their old way of life has been replaced by the reservation that the American government forced them onto; and maybe at one time there was hope on this reservation due to the lies the government told the Indians, but now that hope for a prosperous future is long gone. The reservation no longer “sings” or lives the free live that they used to, but the “song still hangs in the air” because the Native Americans will never allow themselves to forget their heritage and the way things used to be. They have lost much, but will always look to the past and remember their losses as a way of survival.

While the American Indian narrative concentrates on looking to the past as a means of understanding loss and in order to survive, the Mexican American narrative focuses on the ambivalent or contradictory attitudes that emerge within their culture as a result of being forced into the dominant culture. Many Mexican Americans are torn between whether they desire to continue to be a distinct minority group, and whether they desire to assimilate into the dominant American culture. Just as the Mexican American culture as a whole must decide whether to remain distinct or assimilate, Tony in Bless Me, Ultima must decide whether he chooses to follow his father or his mother’s way of life. Of Ultima, Tony states, “She knew that as I grew I would have to choose to be my mother’s priest or my father’s son.” Tony’s situation serves as a microcosm for the choice that most Mexican Americans face—he must struggle with his own ambivalence and choose to follow either his father or his mother’s heritage, and the Mexican American in general must struggle with his or her ambivalence and ultimately choose to either follow their Mexican American heritage or assimilate into the dominant culture. As JH stated in his/her 2005 Final Exam, “Anaya gives Tony much to be ambivalent about. He is forced to make choices between his mother’s and father’s families, [to choose] whether or not to be a priest [and] whether he should only believe in one God […] He is ambivalent about choosing between a traditional or contemporary culture.” And just like Tony, many Mexican Americans are ambivalent regarding their culture choices.