Tanya Stanley

May 4, 2010

Essay 1

The Others and the Self: Voices and Experiences of One

          A universal human characteristic is to contrast the self to the other not only from one race, one religion, one sex, or one culture to another, but also to contrast the self to others within that race, religion, sex, or culture. Defining the self within one’s own community provides people with a sense of identity through individualism as much as contrasting the self to others outside of that community. The texts for this course allow the reader to hear the voice of the minority and to connect with the experience of the minority, which connect the self to the other. Literature provides one voice to be heard by many. Patricia M. Dixon’s fall 2007 final exam submission, “Personal Reflections on American Minority Literature My Journey to Understanding,” suggests a necessary understanding of the other for the self: “all of us have borders inside and out that we may or may not be able to cross and that it is these borders that I have become more sensitive to when dealing with cultures different from my own” (Dixon). The suggestion of borders as prejudices or as fears of the other is the limitation of many onto the other. Instead of dealing with differences—only tolerating the self-determined other—a communication between the self and the other needs to occur; the communication will likely reduce those borders between the self and the other and the voice of the minority will be heard. Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Andrew Tobias’ The Best Little Boy in the World, and Pat Mora’s “Senora X No More,” provide the reader with a snapshot of minority history, life, and experiences, and by applying the seminar’s objective five-a onto the texts we can “discover the power of poetry and fiction to help "others" hear the minority voice and vicariously share the minority experience” (Course Syllabus).  These texts help the others hear the voice of the self, which offers more similarities between the voices than differences. . . .

Essay 2

The Flight of the Minority: Reaching Freedom or Continuing Oppression

          What at first seemed to be just an interesting aspect of African American culture that I learned at the beginning of the semester has extended into a phenomenon throughout minority literature. I started reviewing the African flying myth simply as part of the web highlight component of the midterm assignment, but I extended an interest to research for the journal assignment and I will the close the semester with an intertextual analysis among three minority groups—Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and African Americans. Flight is a powerful tool the minority uses to escape reality in search for truth and for identity. Peter Blue Cloud’s “Crazy Horse Monument,” John G. Neihardt’s Black Elk Speaks, Sandra Cisneros’ Woman Hollering Creek, and Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine, represent two minority groups, and these texts create intertextuality with one another through the African flying myth, which also communicates with Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. Through these texts, the Romantic and mystical aspects of flight offer insight into the characters’ journeys—communal or individual—and their escapes from the reality of oppression. This essay begins where my journal, Juxtaposing the African Flying Myth between Tradition and Technology, ends. This intertextuality becomes a unifying methodology for analyzing and understanding minority literature. Objective three of the seminar describes the minorities’ “alternative narratives…which involve involuntary participation, connecting to the past, and traditional (extended) or alternative families as compared to the “American Dream”” (Course Syllabus). Through objective three-a, the African American alternative narrative “The Dream” “resembles but is not identical to “The American Dream.” Whereas the American Dream emphasizes immediate individual success, “The Dream” factors in setbacks, the need to rise again, and a quest for group dignity” (Course Syllabus). Sub-category a of objective three, the “Flying Africans,” is not only a legend “in African American culture that original people could fly,” but is also a reoccurring facet for much of the minority literature we have read this semester.

          Peter Blue Cloud’s poem “Crazy Horse Monument” does not explicitly describe a minority in flight, but the chorus evokes a whirlwind in which Crazy Horse creates as he “rides the circle of his people’s sleep,” (9, 21, 33), suggesting Crazy Horse is in flight circling over his people while they sleep. Crazy Horse is protecting his people from outside oppressors, so in his flight he escapes the reality of oppression and of an attack. Crazy Horse finds his identity as the tribes’ guardian—defending his people from all unnatural evils.  Through Crazy Horse’s flight, the reader visualizes a tornado formed from Crazy Horse’s flight: the “dark breast feathers of a future storm.” (12, 24, 36). Crazy Horse’s continued circling creates the dark funnel cloud that resists outside penetration. For Crazy Horse, anyone or anything part of the dominant culture represents the negative impacts onto his people and onto the land. Crazy Horse’s search for truth becomes the realization of destruction the new world presents to the Native Americans. Crazy Horse uses flight to protect the community rather than escape it. “The Dream” for Crazy Horse is full of setbacks and his need to rise comes in his literal rising above his people in which his flight represents a quest for group dignity. Unlike the “American Dream,” Crazy Horse finds communal success instead of individual success. The use of flight becomes an aspect of minority literature through the close reading of the poem, which represents the Native Americans and connects the “Flying Africans” myth found within Song of Solomon. Both texts create an image of the minority flying above their oppressors in search for truth and identity.

          In “Visions of the Other World” of Neihardt’s Black Elk Speaks, Black Elk flies “head first, face down, with arms extended” suggesting that Black Elk’s flight is also a protection of the community (197). Instead of flying for individual success, truth, and identity, Black Elk flies over his people and their land (195). Crazy Horse and Black Elk’s flights are communal even though both fly individually. Both of their flights are over their people and for their community. Instead of creating a whirlwind like Crazy Horse does, Black Elk floats above because a strong wind goes underneath him and lifts him into the air (198). Crazy Horse and Black Elk become one with nature, and that impulse of Romanticism—transformation—presents the minority with an ability to transform society. Black Elk rises again and again in his quest for group dignity while he searches for the truth of his visions and for his identity. Like Song of Solomon, Black Elk Speaks is a coming of age narrative in which Black Elks finds himself and matures throughout the story; Black Elk becomes a healer and a defender of his village—of his past—and like Milkman, Black Elk is courageous to find the hidden truths in his quest for group dignity.

          Sandra Cisneros’ short story “Eyes of Zapata” in Woman Hollering Creek mirrors Crazy Horse’s circling in “Crazy Horse Monument” through Inés’ ascent. She feels “the room circle once, twice” and finds herself “under the stars flying above the little avocado tree, above the house and corral” (Cisneros 97). Inés’ flight above the tree is a flight in which she returns to the past—the beginning of her and Zapata’s relationship. Inés connects with the past, which contrasts with the “American Dream” of forgetting the past—objective three. Inés’ flights appear to represent the “American Dream” involving Inés’ individual desire of finding Zapata, but after finding Zapata sleeping with another woman—his wife—Inés ends her flights by returning home to Nicolás and María—her children, her family (Cisneros 98). Inés continually returns home suggesting how important her family is to her—a reversal of the “American Dream” that privileges the individual instead of the group. Inés’ protection of her family parallels the protection Crazy Horse and Black Elk provide to their own communities. Even though Inés is not protecting the entire community, she is protecting her family—the community she needs to protect. When Inés’ transcendental flights end, she returns to her body that waits patiently for her where she left it (Cisneros 98) alluding to the Romanticism within her flight. Her flight is mystical unlike the flight of Crazy Horse which appears as a physical flight more than a mystical one. The Romanticism dehumanizes the flight creating oppression in the already oppressed minority’s search for truth and identity.

          Louise Erdrich’s short story “The World’s Greatest Fishermen” depicts flight as a journey of individualism, which contrasts with “Crazy Horse Monument,” Black Elk Speaks, and “Eyes of Zapata.” Lipsha asks Albertine if she ever dreamed she could fly through the air (Erdrich 40). Lipsha describes his dream of flight as “all lighted up…[and] beautiful” but he tells Albertine he “didn’t dare take a breath” at the end of this flight (Erdrich 40). For Lipsha, the flight is aesthetic but dangerous. He is too scared to breathe during his flight, which Martin D. Briones asserts, and Sara McCall DeLaRosa addresses, as “associated dangers” or “consequences” of flight (Briones and Sarah McCall DeLaRosa’s midterm). Briones and DeLaRosa are referring to Milkman’s flight, but for Lipsha the danger of flight is breathing and the consequence for breathing is presumably death. Unlike the search for group dignity, Lipsha’s flight is for himself. Lipsha flight is an escape from reality that is voluntary and an individual dream, which may suggest the selfishness of the individual quest for success and the consequences of that individuality as opposed to desired success of and for the community.

          The Romantic impulse of transformation is attractive and provides minorities with an ability to change who they are to who they want to be. In the web highlight, I suggest the flight of Milkman as having a mystical quality that dehumanizes him, which helps him during his journey yet hindering his acceptance within society. Through flight, dangers and consequences appear and inevitably someone suffers because of that flight. The African flying myth and the concept of transformation are Romantic and mystical, which allow for the texts of African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexican Americans to communicate with one another introducing similarities, differences, and connections between these minority groups.