LITR 5731: Seminar in
American Minority Literature
Sample Student Final Exam Submission,
fall 2004
Michael Russo
12/10/04
Final Exam
First Essay:
This first essay will focus on the American Indian alternative of the American Dream in American Indian literature – including “loss and survival,” the issue of forced versus voluntary participation in the dominant culture, extended family relationships, the role of the past in the present, and the “American Nightmare” theme. The texts for this essay are Black Elk Speaks and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.
Consider the narrative of “loss and survival” in Black Elk Speaks. Right from the start, Black Elk essentially refers to the American Indian as the “dream that died in the bloody snow,” which certainly seems to indicate loss in a permanent sense. And this also sets up what critics might refer to as the stereotype of the “vanishing Indian,” since the “dream that died” clearly indicates an end. As for Black Elk himself, he admits that his voice is “weak,” which can be read as simply undervalued by the dominant culture or, more likely, analogous to something that is dying off slowly – the last of a kind that was once strong. While hearing of a battle, Black Elk’s audience is told that the American Indian warriors were “like green grass withering in a fire,” another image of life lost, and of reckless death. That the grass is green seems to indicate a waste of life – going before its time in the peak of its existence.
Contrast themes of loss in Black Elk to images of survival in Alexie’s Lone Ranger, which includes that memorable image of a pair of American Indians eating a simple meal at Denny’s. So what, right? Without the myth of the “vanishing Indian,” as seen in the “dream that dies in the bloody snow,” nobody would think twice about the image of American Indians eating a meal at a restaurant. But as Alexie’s story proves, this concept is thought-provoking only because it is unexpected, which demands the question, “Why is it unexpected?” We don’t expect to see American Indians out and about in typical dominant culture establishments perhaps because on some level we’ve bought into this “vanishing Indian” stereotype; that, or we expect American Indians never step foot outside of reservations. American Indians enjoying (or tolerating) a meal at Denny’s is a clear message of survival and “presentness,” and being such a rare sight, it’s also a message of resistance – in other words, we’re here but we don’t often choose to participate in your world.
Yet survival is also a theme in Black Elk, and shortly after mentioning the “dream that dies,” he also claims that the vision that was once mighty is “true and mighty yet.” What exactly does he mean by that? One possibility is that he’s suggesting the spirit of American Indian culture is still alive, and that there’s a possibility that American Indians might return to a place of power at some point in the future. Yet more likely he’s simply arguing something along the lines of, “once a great vision, always a great vision,” meaning the wisdom of the past – which he is about to present – is still applicable in that is has a kind of universal, transcendent quality; there’s something to be learned from it.
When contrasting the “American Dream” narrative to alternative minority narratives, the degree to which the individual or group of focus has consented to participating in the dominant culture is an important point of interest. In the case of “Black Elk Speaks,” there is some amount of room for debate in terms of the “voluntary/involuntary” discussion. Let me explain. Of course the overall story that Black Elk tells in certainly one of involuntary participation – an existence where children are taught that the dominant culture will “get you” if they’re not good, and where the choice is between agreeing to give up one’s home or see it taken by force – Black Elk himself exhibits a certain degree of acceptance or chosen assimilation that is perhaps a bit surprising. Consider the opening pages of the book, where Black Elk offers up a symbolic “peace pipe” to the reader. The question you might first ask is, “Who is the reader?” Meaning, is the intended audience of this book the dominant culture – meaning whites – or other American Indians? While the latter group might make up a certain portion of Black Elk’s audience, it seems to me that this narrative is meant for the dominant culture as a kind of peace project, or a way to foster understanding between whites and American Indians. If so, then the offering of the peace pipe seems to suggest a choice. Black Elk is voluntarily offering to shake hands and initiate a dialogue with the dominant culture. Of course this is happening because the alternatives are few and unattractive, but nonetheless the existence of choice there shouldn’t be overlooked even as we do not fail to overlook the restraints on choice.
In addition to the peace pipe, the “choosing to assimilate” argument can be bolstered by Black Elk’s apparent acceptance of Christianity. For example, while talking about four spirits that at first appear to be strictly American Indian in origin, Black Elk then adds, “these four spirits are only one spirit after all,” signaling his likely acceptance of Christian theology.
Of course, though, there are plenty of passages in Black Elk with images of a forced or involuntary existence. We are told that white men “made little islands for us,” which presents an almost prison-like existence; Alexie too paints a confining picture for the Indian reservation that serves as a setting for much of his story. Black Elk compares his home, the Black Hills, to “melting snow held in our hands,” an image of a situation that is inevitable… a fate that is beyond the power of the American Indian to alter. Images of powerlessness prevail throughout, as seen in the people who want to “get together and do something” about the advancement of the whites into American Indian homes, but manage only to talk “like wind blowing in the end.”
For the American Indian, powerlessness turns the American Dream into the American Nightmare. Black Elk refers to the “Winter of the Hundred Slain” as a “bad dream,” then adds that he remembers it “like some fearful thing in a fog,” that is “troubled” and “afraid.” To so many immigrants who escaped persecution, oppression and a general lack of opportunity in Europe or parts of Asia, America was the “land of opportunity” where one could make a fresh start and find hope for a better standard of living, and for abundant liberty. As seen by Black Elk’s language, the America of the immigrants was something else entirely for American Indians; liberty becomes restraint and oppression, hopes and dreams become nightmares, and the best days are “lost” and not “discovered.” Alexie too fits this pattern. Consider the language and metaphors he uses, from his description of how Victor’s “dream became a nightmare,” followed up soon after by Victor’s “other nightmares, in his everyday reality.” It’s a clear indication that the “nightmare” isn’t something that only happens at night when Victor sleeps.
Another area of contrast between the American Dream and the alternative American Indian narrative is the role of family; the extended family concept is glaringly evident in Black Elk Speaks. The passages which describe the buffalo hunt are quite telling here. The hunters are given a pep talk before the hunt, greeted by the speaker as “good young warriors, my relatives,” and then instructed to care for the group’s sick and elderly – the “old and feeble people without sons.” The idea here is that the warriors will serve as surrogate sons to help those with less physical abilities continue to survive. In Alexie’s work, the extended family structure is there but torn apart and dysfunctional; the Indians of the reservation try to hurt each other physically without apparent motive, and the tribal authority is unable to help those in need of its assistance due to a lack of fund (or perhaps a lack of will). Nuclear families are troubled with break-ups and unfulfilled needs for intimacy. The image of young Victor climbing in bed with his drunk mother and father, looking for the security and comfort that they are too incapacitated to deliver, is striking and even horrifying. The picture that Alexie paints is one of a troubled past, seen in the state of the nuclear families and the extended family of the reservation, a state which is possibly analogous to the tragic history of the American Indian’s relationship with the current dominant culture – a past that his characters need to address in the present in order to find any sense of inner peace. Victor’s inner demons regarding his relationship with his father can be read on a larger scale as a simple message of how the past impacts the present.
Never is there any sense that Black Elk has a desire to “forget the past” and move on without regard to history. In fact, the whole point of his narrative is to preserve the past and, in this case, a unique American Indian history. He talks about “happy times,” and labors to “remember” past tragedies. Alexie’s narrative, on the other hand, points to the desire to forget the past, then comments of the way in which this desire is damaging to both individuals and to their community. The fight with alcoholism is key here; alcohol seems to provide temporary relief from both the past and the present, but it also destroys relationships and as Frederick Douglass might argue, disgusts with the brand of freedom that it offers. Tying back into the idea of forced versus voluntary assimilation, the alternative of alcohol then seems to be Pepsi – an icon of dominant culture capitalism.
As time has run short, I will end this essay here.
Second Essay:
If the alternative narrative for the Mexican American minority group is that of the “ambivalent minority” then both Bless Me Ultima and Woman Hollering Creek are excellent examples of this theme in minority literature. This essay will focus on “Option 1” in reviewing the “ambivalent minority” concept to the two major Mexican American texts.
Our course syllabus defined “ambivalent” in this case to mean “mixed feelings” or “contradictory attitudes.” While this is certainly on display in Ultima, the ambivalence is not shown so much through interactions with the dominant culture – although we see that somewhat in terms of Tony’s feelings of “otherness” at school – but mostly through the dreams, family and community interactions and internal struggles of the Mexican American characters that populate this story.
Could a reader ask for a more conflicted character than that of Antonio? Ultima tells the story of a young Mexican American boy who is torn between the two pasts of his family heritage, fighting to discover a way to honor them both with respect to the wishes and dreams of his parents. The most obvious pull then is that between the Marez tradition and the Luna tradition. The binary opposition of these two traditions couldn’t be clearer: the Spanish roots of the Mexican American versus the American Indian roots of the Mexican American; the daytime versus the nighttime; the cowboy (or meat producer) versus the farmer; masculinity versus femininity. The most significant pressure seems to be on moving towards the Luna tradition – Tony’s three older brothers seem to represent adequate fulfillment of the Marez tradition, leaving Tony’s mother to rest all of her hopes for a farmer/priest son on Tony. Additionally, the Marez tradition seems to be dying out. That Tony’s father agreed to settle down at all is played as his partial acceptance of the inevitability of the vanishing cowboy; I say partial because his restlessness shows that he will never truly be at peace in one place, always dreaming of horizons and frontiers, even if he has chosen to “accept reality.” Yet Tony also wants to be a “man,” and dreams of proving himself to his brothers as worthy of the Marez tradition. So where does Tony fit in? This is the ambivalence that plagues him throughout the text. The possibilities seem to be well defined by his family and community – he can be a vaquero, which means behaving in a certain manner, or he can be a farmer, which has a different set of rules. Neither option is ultimately satisfying for Tony, so his quest is to discover where he fits and define his identity.
That quest definitely extends beyond family traditions and into the area of religion. In a sense, Tony has more than two options here. Catholicism is the most clearly defined possibility, but alternatives can be seen in the earthly deity of the “golden carp” worshiped by Cico and Samuel, and the magic of Ultima. Complicating Tony’s desire for reconciliation is the Catholic commandment that followers shun all other religions, which leaves Tony in a difficult place. As he tells Cico, he “wants to believe” in the alternatives, but it is forbidden. Even entertaining the possible divineness of the golden carp troubles Tony with a sense of betrayal to the Luna tradition: “Would they smile when they learned I doubted the God of my forefathers, the God of the Lunas, and knew I praised the beauty of the golden carp?” Yet Tony does ultimately arrive at a solution. Before asking his father if “a new religion can be made,” Tony reveals his solution only to himself: “Take the llano and the river valley, the moon and the sea, God and the golden carp – and make something new.” What he seems to want to do is to turn his existence from ambivalence into something new and defined, to “build my own dream” from the all the possibilities that are presented, not just one.
Ultima then serves as a kind of blueprint for this ultimate solution; she is a curandera, which seems to tie her to American Indian traditions, but she also shows respect for Catholicism, participating in family prayers and talking openly with Tony about God in a manner that does not discourage his Catholic teachings. Ultima herself may comfortable with her own identity, but the difficulty in labeling her based on the accepted possibilities is a source of reverence and fear from the community in which she lives. The debate of course is curandera or bruja, healer or witch. Like Tony at the end of the novel, Ultima has managed to incorporate seemingly contradictory philosophies into her own identity.
In contrasting the American Dream narrative with the dreams of the characters which inhabit the world of Ultima, that connection to the past is evident again just as it was with Native American narratives. Tony’s mother dreams of Tony becoming a priest and honoring the Luna tradition – on other words, the continuation of the past. It’s interesting to note that the “future” she strives for is a continuation of the life she knew in her younger years – which differs from the progressive nature of the African American “Dream” narrative. Tony’s father dreams of a similar revival of the past, although the specific details of that revival are different. He dreams of a move to California, and his hopes rest in his three elder sons who have traveled the world and share the restless spirit of the Marez tradition. In the case of both Tony’s mother and father, neither seeks to improve upon the past or progress towards a future that is “better” than the past; it seems to them there is no possibility greater than that of a return to their younger manner of living, whether directly or vicariously through their children.
Ambivalence is seen throughout Cisneros’ stories in Woman Hollering Creek, which starts off immediately with a story that purposefully confuses and complicates ethnic stereotypes. The title of the vignette “My Friend Lucy Who Smells Like Corn” immediately sets up the audience for a fall – the trap is to assume that a Mexican American writer who writes about a girl named “Lucy” who “smells like corn” and “tortillas” is certainly writing about another Mexican American. Yet the later descriptions of Lucy’s family, with their “eyes like knife slits,” would better fit an African American family – so what is Lucy’s ethnicity, then? The audience then would have “mixed” and “contradictory” feelings about Lucy’s ethnicity, so perhaps Cisneros’ goal is to create that feeling of ambivalence for her audience.
If part of the reason for ambivalence is the feeling of being, shall we say, multiple identities all at once – as seen in the struggles of Antonio – then Cisneros’ vignette “Eleven” advances this theme. It says, “when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight…” etc. Her character, who talks about the feelings associated with turning eleven, doesn’t know whether she “feels” like she’s eleven or still ten – but admits that really the answer is she is both – like Tony, who is a Luna and a Marez and something new, or like an “onion” or a “tree trunk.”
“Eleven” also introduces the recurring theme of clothes, which enhances the “ambivalence” narrative in a number of ways. Forced to wear a sweater that isn’t hers, the young girl feels “sick inside” and fights back tears; the sweater can almost certainly be read as an identity that is thrust upon the girl against her will by an authoritative figure (in this case a teacher), and the identity does not fit, but is confining and “itchy” and uncomfortable, robbing its wearer of her sense of dignity.
The clothes theme continues in “Barbie-Q,” where a girl discusses toy dolls and the importance of their clothes for the “dressing and undressing” activities – the power that comes with changing identities (seemingly at least) through changing clothes. A nice contrast in this story comes from the “dress invented from an old sock,” which the girls use as an alternative outfit for their dolls – since they cannot afford to buy official outfits. The image if course is immediately absurd; a Barbie doll, representative of the glamour of the white dominant culture – dressed up in an old sock that has been made into a dress. Is she glamorous now? It’s the same doll underneath, but the overall picture is certainly different that the same doll in her “black glitter strapless gown.”
Considering time constraints, we’ll move into a kind of “rapid fire” mode – think Crossfire. More examples of ambivalence in Cisneros’ work: The title of the vignette “mericans” which mixes the words “Mexican” and “American” in a manner that creates something entirely new. References in that same work to “Auntie Light-skin” and “Uncle Fat-face, the blackest of the black sheep” – the contradiction between light-skin and blackness. Where does the Mexican American fit in? In “My Tocaya” we are told about “Tri-ish,” the “Mexican with a British accent” who invents a “phony” identity for herself in an attempt to “be different.” Moving to “Never Marry a Mexican,” Cisneros points to the culture gap that exists between Mexicans and Mexican Americans, working on any assumptions that these two distinctly different groups of people are the same. Who does the Mexican American, born and raised in America, more relate to – a member of America’s dominant culture, or a citizen of Mexico? We hear about the “Mexican girl who couldn’t even speak Spanish,” and how it alienated her from Mexican husband’s family.
Clearly the “ambivalent minority” theme is all over the two major Mexican American works from this semester. Another way to put it is simply that the Mexican American minority group – if the readings from this semester and a proper indication – are struggling with their sense of identity; not wanting to disrespect for their cultural heritage, but nonetheless wanting more progressive possibilities that will result in a future of choice.