Reader: Chris Ornelas
Respondent: Meghan Patterson
Recorder: Kathy Kautzman
9-11-03 

"I Have Not Signed a Treaty with the United States Government”
By Chrystos (Unsettling America, pg. 304)

Biographical Information:

Chrystos was a political activist who was raised in urban California.  She is a third generation descendant of the Menominee tribe. Her writings are based primarily about the treatment of Native Americans by the United States. Her work as a Native land and treaty rights activist has been widely recognized and the political aspect is an essential part of her writing.

Objectives: 

1.  Focus on the tone of the poem. Explain how this anger is an advantage and disadvantage to the effectiveness and integrity of the poem.

2.  Look at how Chrystos defies conventional poetry and prose as well as rules of grammar, punctuation, and typography.

Vocabulary:

Tone – Attitude of the author toward the reader or the subject matter of a literary work.

Stages:  The shock of America is a prevalent stage in this poem. The ideas of resistance, forced assimilation and discrimination are recurring themes. Chrystos labels the United States as a “crazy person.” This indicates that the United States is a single driving force that is destroying and conquering all that is in its path. Her vision of nightmare, lousy food, ugly clothes, and bad meat is about the assimilation that her people have grown tired of living.

Interpretation: The anger used is so widespread that it disguises the message. However, she wants us to get a visual sense of imagery to see the resentment she and her people have toward the U.S. Although I applaud her for the use of the first amendment (freedom of speech), this poem could be taken out of context. Writing things like “Everything the U.S. does to everybody is bad” and “Go so far away we won’t remember you…” sends a mixed message. We are on the two year anniversary of the World Trade Center tragedy and this kind of propaganda was written for the intention to separate and cause feelings of hate between people.

Last Semester, Lori Gouner commented about what the United States had to offer Native Americans. Without children, elders or relatives, the United States offers nothing. They offer meaningless words and ideas. These sorts of ideas come in the form of treaties that were supposed to involve compromise on both parts. However, the Native Americans lost everything.

Questions:

1.  Who is right or wrong? Does Chrystos paint an accurate picture of the United States or is she simply being unfair to the system.

2. What can the Native Americans achieve if they are to separate and divide from Americans?

3.  Does this poem do anything else that show how Indians have been the victim for hundreds of years?