LITR 5731: Seminar in
American Multicultural Literature: Minority
Sample Student Final Exam Submission,
Gary Pegoda
1. Write an essay describing your experience with this course relative to your study (formal and informal) of similar subjects before and (potentially) after. Refer to several texts across the semester to illustrate your learning path.
Describe your experience with minority literature beforehand. How did this course continue, challenge, vary, wreck, expand, or systematize that experience?
2. As we moved from text to text across the semester, what
concept, issue, or problem kept recurring to you as important or intriguing?
Here are the abbreviations I will use.
AAL = African American Literature
MAL = Mexican American Literature
NAL = Native American Literature
AA = African American
MA = Mexican American
NA = Native American
Anglo = Anglo, as we cannot have two AA’s
Where are the Indians, and if We See Them, How Will We Know?
‘“Before our class discussions of Native American literature during the course of this seminar, my understanding of American Indian identity was very much rooted in the romanticized portrait of the Indian, as it is related to the ideas of the “noble savage” or the “evil Indian.” It is necessary to move beyond such a view in order to create a believable American Indian character that does not fall into the category of either of those extremes,”’ said Kathleen Walker-Anderson, in her research journal.
By and large, the persons of the ethnicity of the work being examined became so involved in those works as to become part of the text of life that includes the works and the persons discussing them. We classmates became characters in many of the works we studied, except in the case of NAL’s Black Elk. I do not really include gay literature, since no one said they were gay, and we spent comparatively little time on that subject. Through thinking about the classroom dynamics and the works we studied, I developed some ideas about NAL and NA identity, as essentially being harder to recognize than the others, and thus more difficult with which to identify. My thoughts about how people think of Native Americans really changed a lot, as will be seen. My “learning path” is clearly in studying the works and the people who study the works, in terms, finally, their own ethnic groups, as compared to NAs and NAL.
Classroom dynamics varied widely, seemingly with a direct relation between the topic and the ethnic group in the class whose the literature was being discussed, which gave the class a strong cultural current. When we discussed the AAL, my impressions of the class were unformed, and I just thought that the ones who talked would be the ones who talked all semester, as in most classes. This is neither intrinsically good nor bad, as will be true in all cases here; sometimes the wise are quiet, and sometimes wisdom raises her voice, as the old saying goes. When we reached NAL, I was shocked at the changes in class; this area of writing seemed hard for us to discuss. MAL involved some interesting conflict, there was a shift in the persons who spoke out, to some extent, and the class’s personality changed, but we did discuss it. The discussion of gay literature naturally to be a little embarrassed and humorous, but we had a very open, intelligent group, in my opinion. In fact, every shift in literature, even to the individual works, involved a change the class attitude.
A quick overview of the early semester will help this work to reach a solid grounding. The stories of Equiano, Douglas and Jacobs, of course, are still current news because our nation is still dealing with issues mentioned in these works, such as prejudice. Toni Morrison is still fresh in the public mind because of her extraordinary literary achievements, and because she deals with same sensitive issues as the earlier AA literature. NAL’s Black Elk Speaks and Love Medicine shared the same kind of constant in times and issues, as did early and modern AAL. Elk was older, but told the story of the destruction of a way of life, and Love Medicine was an update in terms of Native American survivors coming to terms with necessary adjustments in their lives.
To finish this overview, Bless Me and Woman Hollering followed the same kind of new/old update, and Best in the World, given the only recent social flow of the discourse, could only be fresh news, to some extent, as there was no older work with which to pair it. In another dimension, Morrison, Erdrich, and Cisneros all had a more complex style, while the older works, along with new genre of Tobias, tended to be traditional narratives. Also, in my opinion, the class was generally more receptive to the older style works, with straightforward plots. We gave lip service to the complexities of Morrison and Erdrich, for example, but especially with Erdrich and Cisneros, we just did not have time or inclination to dig into the works. The class structure, wherein we each lead parts of the classes gave focus to every work, to an extent. We did spend the time on the works as we moved through them.
Now, as to the class’s relationships with the different minorities’ literary works, on the midterm, everyone wrote about AAL, as that was what we had covered. Starting with AAL and then having the midterm naturally leads the class to writing and thinking more about the AAL.
We had covered a lot more ground by the term project, and the dispersion of the students and topics reflects this. MAs wrote about MAL, two for two, turned in so far. AAs wrote – 2 wrote about AAL and MAL, 2 wrote only about AAL, 1 wrote about Anglo and AAL. Anglos wrote about – one wrote a little about AAL, MAL, and NAL, 1 about MAL, 2 about AAL, 1 about NAL.
Of course, the Anglos could not write about Anglo Lit, as we were not there to study that, but all of the AA’s included AAL lit in all their projects, and the MA’s only wrote about MAL. The Anglos writings were about evenly divided among the works we studied together.
This same spread, I did not realize at the time, occurred in class discussions, I believe, though obviously with no data beyond that already given. There was clearly some tendency among outspoken folk, to be so in all areas of lit, such as myself, probably, and some commentary by everyone on all subjects, as required by the class grading guidelines. I want to be clear that this was a wonderfully free, unprejudiced class, and that I am not trying to infer in any way that there was prejudice. There simply was not. Nevertheless, we tended to write about the literature of our on ethnicity, and I believe that is just natural and good.
But by and large, the persons of the ethnicity of the word being examined became so involved in those works as to become part of the text of life that includes written and spoken signs. I remember clearly someone saying, “I love Frederick Douglass, I want to marry him!”
Someone else said, “Gloria Cisneros is my idol.” Or, as Cindy Goodson said in her final journal, “That coupled with studies in Dr. White’s Minority Literature class has caused me to fall fervently in love with that era [Harlem Ren].”
Martin Briones said, “I really enjoy reading Mexican-American literature because I can personally relate with many of their experiences, especially those experiences that are described in family relationships.”
Pat Dixon said in her midterm, in words that seemed to me to flow from her as much as from her paper about what special thing it is that makes people fight for freedom, “They touched that place that is inside each of us that gives us the courage and willingness to stand up, make choices, and defend those choices even if it means our lives.”
Leah Guillory said in her midterm words that fit her as well as the person about whom she was writing, “He possesses an engaging personality. Milkman is “friendly, approachable and easy to talk to like Equiano who is interested in and friendly to the world around him:”
Fernando Trevino said, “the ability to persevere seems to be ignited, sustained and perpetuated by the acquisition of information or knowledge; knowledge that, which cultivated to serve a purpose, can substantially alter the lives of the individual who uses it.”
I cannot go on, of course, just showing how we students put ourselves into the literature we study, but it is clear that we do so. So why are we here? Because only one person wrote about NAL in this course. We had time to assimilate Black Elk, and Love Medicine was great. Why did no more of us write about NAL?
Consider that the AAL featured giants like Frederick Douglass, with whom anyone can identify. He fought for what he believed in and achieved greatness. Who would not want to study him? In MAL, in Ultima, Antonio goes through a struggle that, actually, graduate school makes us all endure; he measures up his faith to all the new things he hears. Besides, Antonio, though not a great, real person like Douglass, is very likeable and his story is funny, moving and stays with you. The more difficult novels, in my opinion, could not sustain this course by themselves. It would be more a course in modern novels than in literature and culture. The ones we could understand kept it together for most of us, had more meaning, and will stay with us longer. Outside the academic setting, Morrison, Erdrich and Cisneros could be enjoyable, since we could just read them and enjoy it, but due to their complexities, in academia, exploring them represents challenges.
So, what is it about Black Elk? He is not presented as Catholic or Protestant, and his religion as given in the book is visionary in terms that are very difficult for modern people to understand. Mystical horses were big for him, but most of us have not ridden that much or had horses be so important to our lives. People shooting through the sky like arrows, alas, are hard to understand, too.
Culturally, we tend to see Douglass, for example, in terms of what any great man is. We see Antonio as someone much like ourselves. Ultima herself is not so far away from the strong women of our lives. AA and MA culture are here and have been all our lives. NAL simply is not there, for us. It hurts me, and I was angry (sorry about that), that we could not seem to find the American Indian, as one of my professors said, except in glimpses as he moved silently through the forest.
Black Elk fought, too, as did Douglass, but he cold-bloodedly shot a man in the forehead, because the man was gritting his teeth as Black Elk cut the skin and hair off his head. That is hard reading, even for one-sixteenth Cherokee me. It is like reading about a savage.
I know that modern American Indians are as bright and civilized as anyone, and that even in Black Elk’s day, they were as smart and as noble, as enduring, as anyone, but I had to face it. Let me take this is two parts, past and present.
In the past, these Native American people were thousands of years behind the Europeans. They were hunting with rocks tied to sticks, as arrows or spears. They had no wheels, no large cities. On and on, the list of things that make their culture look Stone Age just goes on. They were noble and free, proud and good at what they did, but they were so far behind, technologically.
The African Americans may have been far behind the Europeans in technology but they caught on fast. Equiano thought for a little while that ships were moved by magic, but soon enough he was helping run one. Douglass was born into the brutalities of enslavement, but rose up to achieve many things. Black Elk did not. He still clung to a subsistence existence, and his story was simply too mystical for most of us to feel any involvement.
Further, the African Americans and Mexican Americans retained their identity as identifiable groups. You can see, usually, if someone is African American or Mexican American, not for purposes of prejudice, but simply to know, “hey, that man or woman probably shares a lot of cultural experiences with me.” It is not that way with Native Americans. We did not integrate into Protestantism or Catholicism. Traces of our culture are not important parts of them. We cannot recognize each other on the street. I do not know if there is a Native American at Clear Lake, though I am certain that there are African Americans and Mexican Americans. Sometimes I wish Native Americans were distinguishable by their appearance, but it is not so, as far as I can tell.
With no trace now, no visible identity, no traces left on the great cultural institutions, we are hard to find, even for each other. We are like the one who got drunk or sober, she did not know which, and walked off in to the snow and disappeared, June. Our population is growing, census data says, but we are like a shadow at dusk, blending into night with no sign left. That is mainly why the class did not “get into” Black Elk. He was a nasty guy at times, an incomprehensible prophet at others, in a losing cause, and his fans cannot recognize each other--there is no obvious cultural legacy of which to speak.
Also, and finally, we today are definitely not an oral culture, not hunters, not followers of buffalo, and it is on this land where we have dwelt for thousands of years that we fade, fade, slowly away.
I would suggest a more heroic story, to get an Indian story for which everyone could cheer and want to hear repeated, so that more than one would choose NAL about which to write. Do I know of one, a story like that? No. Still, although possibly without reason, I do not surrender hope. We do not have a Virgin of Guadalupe for an origin story around which we can rally, with contemporary relevance. There is no Douglass for us to follow. There is not even a Golden Carp or a healer like Ultima. Who then will lead us?
Learning about the lack of one’s identity is sad, but a beautiful and worthwhile thing, and if I can think of a way to encourage the development of such an identity, and knowledge of that identity, I will do so. I believe Kathleen is right that we need to move beyond the old stereotypes. Maybe it is liberating, too, not to be a part of the modern world, in some small way? I want there to be joy here, as I remember seeing the red clouds.
Class question--How essential is this subject matter to your work as a reader or teacher beyond this course? I am not yet a teacher but I can tell the reader how this subject matter has affected me and I hope will continue to affect me, as a human. These effects should carry over into every area of my life, and especially when I am a teacher, what I have acquired here will be of utmost value to me and my students.
Concepts of Imagination and Personality Emerging from Studies
Of Minority Literature
Reading has always had an odd effect on me, in terms of imagining the persons about whom I read. A few examples will clarify what I mean. I have read so much by Winston Churchill that I began to able to imagine I wore his facial expression, and perhaps could imagine his voice saying things other than those, which I had heard recordings of him saying. The same is true of Abe Lincoln, too, and now, Douglass. However, personality is more than these things; I read and imagine the internal life of a person, and project that beyond me and onto others with whom I have contact.
. I feel a great freedom in identifying with Douglass, and with Macon Dead III, even with little Antonio. I realize I can never really know what Douglass felt or thought, but try telling my readerly imagination that. For one like myself, who has never been secure in any particular racial identification, wondering if I was part African American or Indian or Mexican American, being in a class where I can identify with Douglass, with members of all these groups, and Native Americans, too, has been a release
This freedom, in turn, has released in me a new wave of freedom from prejudice. I have fought prejudice ever since I realized what it was, but it still contacts me through others, sometimes through the most unexpected sources. I do not partake of it, but it hits at me and I see it hit others. I have fought prejudice in the past with love and prayer, with trust in my Lord. Now I have another aspect of freedom to which to cling. I have had the strangest new interpretation of a Scripture which I have known all my life, since I became involved in the new freedom of identifying with African American persons as a positive, good thing, embracing what would have concerned me before.
The Scripture that has come to have a new meaning for me, in this light, speaks of Jesus telling some one that for them to get to Heaven would be like getting a camel through the eye of a needle. I saw a dear friend, and sensed a wave of prejudice about to pass over us, and I intently looked through the imagined eye of a needle, through that prejudice, to a new appreciation of my friend, of freedom, of free thought, and of liberty through faith. That, for me, is good news. I have taken up this strange imagining many times in the last few weeks, as if saying to the world--I cannot overcome all prejudice, but I have a new vision of how I can see through it. I have gained this because of the way our course and my faith have combined, though I cannot claim to have gone out hunting for this idea. It just came to me.
Not as prejudiced, but as concerned for persons who might feel prejudice’s insidious effects, and, I suppose, for myself, I have sometimes been surprised or taken aback by prejudiced statements, opinions, or even looks. Now, I see through them and know that I can help best by jumping in and embracing the things I feared, as a brave, sensitive, strong African American man might do, as Douglass might do.
Further, in identifying with Douglass, and being happy that I can do so, I have reached a new and better place in my struggles in another way—I can imagine the inner lives of persons of other ethnicities better than I ever did before, I do believe.
This feeling first came to me as I read Morrison’s Song of Solomon, and then went back to Douglas and Equiano, but stayed with me all through the course. I could imagine knowing a little more about the inner life of a friend who is African American and whom I have known for close to thirty years. We have grown from wild young men to old fellows at church together, and stood together through hard times, but I suddenly wondered one day, does he ever feel what Macon III felt? Does he ever wonder about his heritage, not like in Roots, which was a great thing, but in the sense of tying his life together in a new way, as young Macon did? Does he feel like money is all that important, like Macon did? Yes, to the first, and , no, to the second, came my inner reply. I have a friend of ten years who is Mexican American. Does he ever wonder about distant magic, as Ultima’s? No one of these thoughts conveys the sense of renewed communication and freedom between me and my friends. The closest I can come to expressing it right now might be that I have a new set of imaginings, of imagined personas, through which to view and imagine the world.
When you work with the same people every day, for many years, that renewal, reinvigoration, is precious and rare. I might ask a question to someone I never would have thought to ask before. I might say something without fear, that I did not know, even conceive, as a question before.
And there is a new joy in our relationships. I am not the guy who says, “Hey, what about that Toni Morrison?” I am the one who asks, what did the sports section say, today? And now, I listen, not really interested in sports, but interested in my friend. I am not interested in my friend as being like someone in a book, either, but as a unique person that my exposure to new literature and new respect has given me new eyes to see. These studies and my natural inclinations have broken me out of some ruts.
I have a friend who is Mexican American who writes mystic poetry. I read one of his poems. Now that I have read Ultima, I have an idea about what he meant by, “death walks at my left side.” I do not have a specific idea, but just a sense of the mysticism that Mexican American poetry can have.
I used to resent Russell Means not wanting Atlanta Braves fan to do the tomahawk chop. I still do. I just do not have problems with “the Braves.” I still think that is positive and good. On the other hand, I understand a little, maybe, of the deep hurt that the Native American feels, once he becomes ( or she) aware of their heritage, of how blended into the mixer it is that it is all gone. I know so many people who are a little bit Indian! But you can know them for years without knowing that. Maybe next time I talk to someone I know has some Indian blood, I will just out and ask them about it.
But that will happen when it happens. In the meantime, I have a new strength against prejudice and for equal rights. It is refreshing as the early days of college when we marched the streets for equality. I know it is not as refreshing for me as it was for Equiano the day he became free, but such moments as that of which I have learned will remain in my mind for a long time, and will give me courage to stand again and again for what is right.
To me, that is the best thing this course has been about. We have communicated about freedom and agreed to stand for it, as nearly as I can tell. Even though we have written our papers largely along ethnic lines, we have learned more respect for each other, for the intellectual abilities of every human being. I will carry these memories and hopes to my new students; one fine day we will thread the needle together.
