LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature

Sample Student Final Exam Submission, spring 2006

Crystal Reppert

May 04, 2006

Essay I: Native American literature in relation to forced participation.

Native Americans Using Alternative Teaching Methods

            Black Elk Speaks has been criticized as being “too Indian”. The manner in which it was told, through a translator, and the way it was recorded, through a  transcriptionist, leads to doubts as to what real story Black Elk wanted to tell. Personally, I believe that Black Elk told the story he wanted people to know the loss his people had experienced at the hands of the white invaders.

            Black Elk chose Neihardt as his biographer. He wanted his story to be told in a way that was true, that showed the sufferings of a courageous people, that told of battles and scalps, of broken promises and outright lies, but in a manner that did not focus on the Native Americans as a hopeless, helpless, brutal mass. Naming tribal members made the story personal and invited the reader to identify with the characters. Oral story telling was the traditional form for Indians to transfer knowledge from one generation to another. Oral contracts bound Indians based on their character and the need to maintain peaceful relations for the good of all. His telling of battles was not to promote the image of Indians as the brutal savage, but an attempt to carry on the tradition of story telling as a way for all people to learn from past mistakes and make a better future.

            A great deal of detail was given to his vision. This would first appear to support the notion that Black Elk’s real story may have been cast aside. His focus on a vision is incongruous with his life as a teacher to his people of Catholicism, a definite participation in the dominant culture. But, he made the connection clear when he told of the loss of the bison: “the bison were a gift of the good spirit and were our strength, but we should lose them, and from the same good spirit we must find another strength” (30). His vision tells of loss and suffering, but provides a path to find hope within the new circumstances forced on them. By telling of loss and broken promises, Black Elk hoped to appeal to the last avenue open to his people for salvation those who would read his book. Just as the writers of the slave narratives saw little hope in appealing to the authorities who were active in justifying their bondage, Black Elk was wise enough to realize that appeal to the masses through the story telling techniques of the white people would promote more sympathy and good will from those who were in a better position than himself to petition authorities for more just treatment of the Native Americans. Reaching them was a technique of marketing. His story had to focus on his separateness from them to inspire them to read his story. To illicit their sympathy, he had to appeal to the similarities between Native Americans and Wasichus family, home, spiritual belief, the value of contracts and honesty.

            Sherman Alexie picks this theme up again six decades later. His style has changed from that of one who has experienced a loss first hand to one who is living in the aftermath of its affects. Educated in the white system, Alexie is aware that his story cannot be told without an audience. Alexie mixes the seriousness of his story with humor. His humor is dry, but just enough to take the edge off his words, just enough to keep people from putting the book down and walking away, just enough to make them ponder the value of a society that focuses on individuality rather than community.

            Alexie recounts many separate stories of Indian participation in the dominant society. His description of Indian education dramatizes the point that Black Elk made more subtlety the de-humanization that white education and culture tried to force onto the Indians. His description of the second grade teacher who tried to force her will on Victor by making him cut his braids is reminiscent of Black Elk talking of the “islands” that were assigned to Native Americans. Individuality is not valued by those considered outside of the accepted culture. Instead, conformance and participation as defined by the white person is the only acceptable path. “She called me Indian, indian, indian.’ And I said, Yes, I am. I am Indian. Indian, I am’” (173). Like Black Elk on his assigned “island”, Victor realizes the importance of his identity and focuses on it for his personal preservation. Through both books, a theme is carried of the fight for self identity while participating in a society they were not part of constructing, but that cannot be ignored.

Essay 2: Mexican-American literature in regard to representations and narratives of ethnicity and gender.

Mexican-American Identity

            Mexican-American literature parallels Native American literature in that the authors strive to associate themselves with their ethnic identity. Several of the best known authors R. Anaya, S. Cisneros, and A. Vea trace their recent heritage back to Mexico and still have close connections with that society. Mexicans have dealt with an identity crisis in Mexico, as well as America, as their ethnicity forced them into the lower rungs of society while the paler skinned descendants of the Spanish conquerors took control of the society. In American literary circles, Chicano authors can counter this identity crisis by combining the mystic expression of their counterparts in Latin America with the biographical renditions of their families struggles to assimilate into American society. They can express their pride in both their ethnicity and their success in a separate cultural value system.

            Anaya skillfully wove the magical belief system of old Mexico into his novel, Bless Me, Ultima. The focus of his book is not on retaining the old ways, but of the loss that is incurred when the old ways are ignored and brushed under the rug in favor of new adaptations. While his father laments the loss of the llano, he continues to provide for his family within the American system of wage earning. His mother still retains her ancestral ties to the land through her family, but they are also part of the American economic system as their crops are sold in the American market. His brothers, however, experience the largest loss of identity as they return from fighting a war based on white European values to a society that still considers them second class citizens. They are in the transition between old ties of family and the new expectation that by breaking away from those ties they can establish better lives for themselves.  The parent’s of Antonio and Antonio himself have been able to stay on the fringes of American society, but his brothers have been washed into it.

            The placing of his story in a small New Mexican community allowed Anaya the freedom to keep the ethnic identity of the community separate from a struggle to assimilate into American society. Just as many American authors who want to re-establish a lost connection of people to the land focus their stories on small, rural communities, Anaya used the setting to make connections for Antonio. By grounding a base for Antonio’s connection with nature, cuarenderan skills, and his educational accomplishments within a Mexican community, Anaya makes the loss of those ties so much deeper when he brings in descriptions of Tonio’s brothers abandoning the family in favor of their individual desires. Anaya grounds the cultural values of Mexican society as a source of strength and commitment that is lost when American values are pursued.

            Cisneros also follows this trend. As a feminist, her stories encompass both Mexican and female identity but not in a way that makes the struggle of Mexican women so separate from that of white women. In her story, “Never Marry A Mexican”, the struggle of the female hero to deal with her struggle to establish her identity as a person with passions and self goals is a common struggle for all women. The admonitions of the mother, “Never marry a Mexican,” could be any mother telling her daughter, “Never marry a truck driver”, “Never marry a cop.”  The mother is drawing a connection with economic stability and security. As established Americans, the mother wants her daughter to maintain the economic class they have attained rather than slipping back into the cycle of poverty brought on by low education and manual labor. But, the hero discovers that men with positions marry trophy wives that rarely establish identities of their own. By being her own person, the hero has effectively annihilated her marriage prospects.

            Cisneros follows up this point again in “Bien Pretty”.  This story is more ethnically centered, but still remains focused on an educated woman whose attempts at love have failed once with someone of her own cultural and educational background and again when she sought love from someone of a lesser status. Her message is fairly blunt a woman with drive and ambition needs to be prepared to be independent. Again a story any woman can connect with, but as it has so many cultural references (Spanish words, Mexican icons and artwork) it is more related to her ethnic background.

            In the case of both authors, they mainly adapt personal events to their writing. In the research for my journal I was surprised to learn this. It is amazing to me how open and sharing they can be with their lives, but that is what gives so much more energy and presence to their literature. This is also a technique picked up by successful Native American authors. Cisneros stayed with this autobiographical style throughout all of her books that I have read, but Anaya and Alexie tried to veer off that path and lost some of their focus. Perhaps it is the connection that Americans of every nationality and socio-economic class have with minority writers to lost connections with family and nature that makes the writing of minority authors do compelling.