Reading assignments: Zitkala-Sa, American Indian Stories: "Impressions of an Indian Childhood" (7-45); "The School Days of an Indian Girl" (47-80); "Dream of her Grandfather" (155-58)

Minority Culture Reader: Telishia "Tee" Mickens

American Indian Stories

Impressions of an Indian Childhood (P.7)

Objective 1d. “ The Color Code”

*Literature represents the extremely sensitive subject of skin color infrequently or indirectly.

*Western civilization transfers values associated with “light and dark” (people of light or dark complexions, huge implications for power, validity)

*Skin color matters, but how much varies by circumstances

- If the paleface does not take away from us the river we drink.

- I hate the paleface that makes my mother cry!

- But the paleface has stolen our lands and driven us hither. Having defrauded us of our land, the paleface forced us away.

- Setting the pail of water on the ground, my mother stooped, and stretching her left hand out on the level with my eyes, she placed her other arm about me; she pointed to the hill where my uncle and my only sister lay buried.

"There is what the paleface has done!

Settings and Color

On a bright, clear day

was pleased with an outline of yellow upon a background of dark blue, or a combination of red and myrtle-green. There was another of red with a bluish-gray that was more conventionally used.

yellow blossoms we found little crystal drops of gum

we were like little sportive nymphs on that Dakota sea of rolling green

The Big Red Apples

The School Days of an Indian Girl (P.47)

Objective 1d. “ The Color Code”

*Literature represents the extremely sensitive subject of skin color infrequently or    indirectly.

*Western civilization transfers values associated with “light and dark” (people of light or dark complexions, huge implications for power, validity)

*Skin color matters, but how much varies by circumstances

Objective 3: minority dilemma—assimilate or resist?

 Does the minority fight or join the dominant culture that exploited it?

What balance do minorities strike between the economic benefits of assimilation and its personal or cultural sacrifices?

In general, immigrants assimilate, while minorities remain separate (though connected in many ways).

3a. To contrast the dominant-culture ideology of racial separation from American practice, which frequently involves hybridity (mixing) and change.

The dominant American white culture typically sees races and genders as pure and permanent categories, perhaps allotted by God or Nature as a result of Creation, climate, natural selection, etc.,

But races always mix. What we call "pure" is only the latest change we're used to.

Racial divisions & definitions constantly change or adapt; e. g., the Old South's quadroons, octaroons, "a single drop"; recent revisions of racial origins of Native America; Hispanic as "non-racial" classification; "bi-racial"

Contrast “four races” (Aboriginal, Caucasian, Mongolian, & Negroid) with “only one race: the human race”

Instead of “black & white” dynamics, America is increasingly  “brown” or "other"

“post-racial” identity of urban American youth following school integration, in contrast to "pure" races surviving in suburbs and private religious schools

 3b. To identify the "new American" who crosses, combines, or confuses ethnic or gender identities
(e. g., Tiger Woods, Halle Berry, Lenny Kravitz, Mariah Carey, David Bowie, Boy George, Tila Tequila Nicole Scherzinger of Pussycat Dolls, Vin Diesel)

- On the train, fair women, with tottering babies on each arm, stopped their haste and scrutinized the children of absent mothers. Large men, with heavy bundles in their hands, halted near by, and riveted their glassy blue eyes upon us.

- I sank deep into the corner of my seat, for I resented being watched. Directly in front of me, children who were no larger than I hung themselves upon the backs of their seats, with their bold white faces toward me. Sometimes they took their forefingers out of their mouths and pointed at my moccasined feet. Their mothers, instead of reproving such rude curiosity, looked closely at me, and attracted their children's further notice to my blanket. This embarrassed me, and kept me constantly on the verge of tears.

-I was as frightened and bewildered as the captured young of a wild creature.

-I had arrived in the wonderful land of rosy skies, but I was not happy,

as I had thought I should be.

Cutting of the Hair

- We discussed our fate some moments, and when Judewin said, "We have to submit, because they are strong," I rebelled.

"No, I will not submit! I will struggle first!" I answered.

FOUR STRANGE SUMMERS

Discuss her “assimilation” to her life in the East

Setting and colors

The first day in the land of apples was a bitter-cold one

The windows were covered with dark green curtains

The melancholy of those black days has left so long a shadow that it darkens the path of years that have since gone by.

Questions

1. In relation to our reading of Impressions of an Indian Childhood, how does it fit with Objective 1a, Involuntary participation and continuing oppression—the American Nightmare?

• Unlike the dominant immigrant culture, ethnic minorities did not choose to come to America or join its dominant culture. (African Americans were kidnapped, American Indians were invaded.)
   

• Exploitation and oppression instead of opportunity—whereas immigrant cultures see America as a land of equality and opportunity, minorities may remember America as a place where their people have been dispossessed of property and power and deprived of basic human rights. Contrast with the girls voluntary decision to go leave her family and go to the East, even though she was given a false description of the circumstances?

2. Does the little Indian girl remind of Pecola from The Bluest Eye I some ways?

And does some of her eagerness and actions remind of Fredrick Douglass?

3. Even though the little Indian girl becomes successful with her journey to the East (learning the language, winning contest, going to college, graduating), why does she still seem lost and sad?