LITR 4332 American Minority Literature
Poetry Presentation 2008

Tuesday, 28 October: Louise Erdrich, “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways”

Reader: Bethany Roachell

Objective 1: Minority Definitions

American minorities are defined not by numbers but by power relations modeled on ethnic groups’ problematic relation to the American dominant culture.

 

Indian Boarding School: The Runaways
by Louise Erdrich (Anishinaabe)

Home’s the place we head for in our sleep.
Boxcars stumbling north in dreams
don’t wait for us. We catch them on the run.
The rails, old lacerations that we love,
shoot parallel across the face and break
just under Turtle Mountain. Riding scars
you can’t get lost. Home is the place they cross. 

The lame guard strikes a match and makes the dark
less tolerant. We watch through cracks in boards
as the land starts rolling till it hurts
to be out here, cold in regulation clothes.
We know the sheriff’s waiting at midrun
to take us back. His car is dumb and warm.
The highway doesn’t rock. It only hums
like a wing of long insults. The worn-down welts
of ancient punishments lead back and forth. 

All runaways wore dresses, long green ones,
the color you would think shame was. We scrub
the sidewalks down because it’s shameful work.
Our brushes cut the stone in watered arcs
and in the soak frail outlines shiver clear
a moment, things us kids pressed on the dark
face before it hardened, pale, remembering
delicate old injuries, the spines of names and leaves. 

 

Questions:

What is the first impression the poem gives you?

For the objective;

1a. What do you believe the poem is saying about the “social contract” American Indians had with the immigrant settlers who came to America?

 

1b. Where in the poem do you spot the choiceless side of the American Indian’s treatment?

How about the voiceless side?

 

1c. In this poem there is an abundance of “double language” Erdrich uses to explain the situation for the runaways. What examples stick out?

Why?

What is she trying to get across?

 

1d. You don’t really see the color code in terms of the white man against the American Indian in this poem. However, she does use color in the last stanza.

Could this be considered part of “the Color Code”?

 

1e. In regard to the “dominant culture attitudes,” immigrants choose to leave the past behind and start anew. In the poem there are references to lacerations that scar, old injuries that are remembered… nothing is forgotten.

How is this like what we saw with African Americans?

Why do you think the suffering is remembered?

 

 

 

Objective 1: Minority Definitions

American minorities are defined not by numbers but by power relations modeled on ethnic groups’ problematic relation to the American dominant culture.  

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.

Thus the "social contract" of Native Americans and African Americans differs from that of European Americans, Asian Americans, and most Latin Americans.

The American dominant culture dismisses minority grievances: “That was a long time ago. . . . Get over it.” But the consequences of "no choice" echo down the generations, particularly in terms of assimilation versus minority difference (see objective 3).

 

1b. “Voiceless and choiceless”; “Voice = Choice”

Contrast the dominant culture’s self-determination or choice through self-expression or voice, as in "The Declaration of Independence."

 

1c. To observe alternative identities and literary strategies developed by minority cultures and writers to gain voice and choice:

  • “double language” (same words, different meanings to different audiences)

  • using the dominant culture’s words against them

  • conscience to dominant culture (which otherwise forgets the past).

 

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”—e. g., good & evil, rational / irrational—to people of light or dark complexions, with huge implications for power, validity, sexuality, etc.

  • This course mostly treats minorities as a historical phenomenon, but the biological or visual aspect of human identity may be more immediate and direct than history. People most comfortably interact with others who look like themselves or their family.

  • Skin color matters, but how much varies by circumstances.

  • See also Objective 3 on racial hybridity.
     

1e. Dominant Culture Attitudes

  • Immigrants leave the past behind and think minorities should do the same.

  • Thus the dominant American immigrant culture dismisses minority grievances with shrugs, platitudes, and exasperation: “That was a long time ago. . . . Get over it”

  • Despite powerful evidence to the contrary, the dominant culture claims to be colorblind : “My parents raised me not to judge people by the color of their skin” (frequently articulated by those resentful of minority expression).