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Stereotypical Native American roles in media and literature
Essay on native american literature
Native american literature essays
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Originally, an American identity to the margins of society signified an opportunity to acquire a better life. In Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, or Zitkala-Sa (Red bird), story, Impressions of an Indian Childhood, she yearned for the land of red apples at a young age. The land of red apples represented a life of happiness, liberty, equality, but most importantly hope. To Zitkala-Sa’s imagination, asserting an American identity was something she favored. However, upon arrival, that was changed and she was stripped of her individuality. While she was stripped of her identity, a “white man’s” education gave Zitkala-Sa an opportunity to be a storyteller, expressing how she comes of age and asserts an American Indian identity. Zitkala-Sa’s characterizes her boarding school as an “Iron Routine” (Zitkala-Sa 329). Chapter five, “Iron Routine” is one that begins with feelings of nostalgia and ends in melancholy. “A loud-clamoring bell awakened us at half past six …show more content…
in the cold winter mornings. From happy dreams of Western rolling lands and unlassoed freedom, we tumbled out upon chilly bare floors back again into a paleface day” (Zitkala-Sa 329). Zitkala-Sa envisions a fantasy that seems to cry out freedom, but not this American freedom she anticipated in the chapters prior. She dreamed of being untied and free in her land, the land that was unique to her identity. Unfortunately, she is abruptly woken with little time to dress and “wet [her] eyes” (Zitkala-Sa 329) Zitkala-Sa enters the room for roll call and takes note of the many drowsy children. With no apologies for the tiresome morning, a paleface enters the room with what Zitkala-Sa refers to as a “halo of authority” (Zitkala-Sa 329). This woman stands tall and represents everything intimidating. Zitkala-Sa acknowledges the attendance list and includes that no matter how bad she may feel- it was “inbred in [her] to suffer in silence rather than to appeal to the ears of one whose eyes could not see [her] pain” (Zitkala-Sa 330). Being absent, meant that it was nearly impossible to ever leave the iron routine “after the civilizing machine had once begun its day’s buzzing” (Zitkala-Sa 330). For that gave Zitkala-Sa every reason to feel as though she must trudge through any day in pain and essentially suffer. Zitkala-Sa missed her mother and the guilt of leaving her ran up her spine. She longed to discover a place of belonging; she no longer fit in with the woman she called mother, “My mother had never gone inside of a schoolhouse, and so she was not capable of comforting her daughter who could read and write” (Zitkala-Sao 330). She sought out to continue her education in hopes to win a contest resulting in finding a place where she could be herself. However, a shadow of guilt is cast upon Zitkala-Sa even in triumph. This shadow can only mean one thing, Zitkala-Sa is arriving at a sense of identity. The melancholy of those black days has left so long a shadow that it darkens the path of years that have since gone by. These sad memories rise above those of smoothly grinding school days. Perhaps my Indian nature is the moaning wind which stirs them now for their present record. But, however tempestuous this is within me, it comes out as the low voice of a curiously colored sea-shell, which is only for those ears that are bent with compassion to hear it. (Zitkala-Sa 330) These sad memories come about in this passage and by using this image of holding up this “curiously colored- sea-shell” to the ear shows how meaningful her voice is (Zitkala-Sa).
It is only those who have such compassion that will hear her. This act of storytelling gives Zitkala-Sa a chance to find a sense of belonging. She belongs to a society, yet still, hold on to the memories and the stories her past consist of. The act of storytelling plays a significant role in Zitkala-Sa’s writing. Gary Totten explains in “Zitkala-Sa and the Problem of Regionalism” that “through the motif of storytelling, female local color writers emphasize ‘a homogenous, empathic audience, insisting that stories are incomplete until they are shared’ and preserved” (Totten 91). He argues that storytelling not only builds but also sustains a community (Totten 91). This is important to understand when reading Zitkala-Sa’s work because she is using storytelling in this passage as a way of reclaiming her identity, which is now an American
Indian. Zitkala-Sa first viewed the Red Apple Country as a land that offered possibilities. However, upon arrival, Zitkala-Sa’s identity was taken from her in efforts to achieve a white man's education. While moving to Eastern America contributed to the loss of identity, Zitkala-Sa used her education in a positive light. Through story telling, she was able to reveal a shadow that essentially helped in recovering her Indian heritage while asserting herself as an American.
The Essay, I have chosen to read from is ReReading America was An Indian Story by Roger Jack. The topic of this narrative explores the life of an Indian boy who grows up away from his father in the Pacific Northwest. Roger Jack describes the growing up of a young Indian boy to a man, who lives away from his father. Roger demonstrates values of the Indian culture and their morals through exploration of family ties and change in these specific ties. He also demonstrates that growing up away from one’s father doesn’t mean one can’t be successful in life, it only takes a proper role model, such as the author provides for the young boy.
She makes the invisible visible by centering on the lives of Chicanos—their relationships with their families, their religion, their art, and their politics. Anzia Yezierska has written two short story collections and four novels about the struggles of Jewish immigrants on New York’s Lower East Side. Yezierska stories explore the subject of characters’ struggle with the disillusioning America of poverty and exploitation while they search for the ‘real’ America of their ideals. She presents the struggles of women against family, religious injunctions, and social-economic obstacles in order to create for herself an independent style. Her stories all incorporate autobiographical components.
In the essays "You Can Go Home Again" by Mary TallMountain and "Waiting at the Edge: Words Towards a Life" by Maurice Kenny, both writers are in search of something. Throughout their lives, they 've been mocked and felt out of place due to their Native American heritage. Both authors wanted to disown their heritage; however, it is through this attempted renunciation, that both authors wanted to fit in amongst their peers. In order to do so, TallMountain and Kenny had to search for their selves. Both, TallMountain and Kenny, search for their identity through family, school, and nature.
We see scenes where Mae is happily conversing with her mother in both English and Wampanoag in the car as they pass through a town of Wampanoag named streets. This visual imagery urges the viewer to wonder how these familiar representations of Indian words and sayings work to hide how the indigenous people live in modern times. With the lack of presence of local Native peoples in the forms of mass media, people have started to believe the myth of the disappearance of the Native peoples in places such as New England. The film also briefly gestures, through interviews, that people have started to dismiss Indians as being long gone from the world, and that non-Natives see them as “invisible people” in order to justify the Euroamerican absorption of indigenous regions. The film encourages us to understand that, even with the impact of history, Native peoples still live here, and that they are still connected to their native land, that their homeland is one of the most important relationships. Jessie explains, “I lost my land rights” Translated into Wampanoag is “I fall down onto the ground,” because “For Wampanoag people to lose one’s land, is to fall off your
In Thomas King's short story "Borders," a Blackfoot mother struggles with maintaining her cultural heritage under the pressure of two dominating nations. Storytelling is important, both for the mother and for the dominant White society. Stories are used to maintain and pass on cultural information and customs from one generation to another. Furthermore, stories can be used both positively and negatively. They can trap individuals into certain ways of thinking, but they can also act as catalysts that drive social change within society.
This is an explorative essay on the theme in Patricia Grace’s novel Potiki that ‘telling and retelling stories is an important and valuable part of being human’.
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
Even before she spent "four strange summers" of her early teenage years hanging "in the heart of chaos," Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, or Zitkala-Sa, found her Native American world in 1884 at age eight compromised by her mother's tears and the hard, bitter line of her lips. Zitkala-Sa's mother's hatred of white Americans cast dark shadows over the happy days when Zitkala-Sa was clear in her vision of herself as a young Yankton Nakota girl. The biological fact that Zitkala-Sa's father was a white Indian agent, a man named Felker, who deserted Zitkala-Sa and her mother, and the historical turmoil of the cultural degeneration of the American Indians in the late nineteenth century combined to set the stage for chaos and problems of identity. Zitkala-Sa addresses the personal and historical impact of the transition of the American Indian into a white man's world in her American Indian Stories (1921), a collection of essays first published in Harper's Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly in 1900 and 1901, many of which are autobiographical. Although she wasted those "four strange summers" grieving that she "was neither a wild Indian or a tame one" (69), her book reveals that Zitkala-Sa chose not to just "hang in the heart of chaos." Zitkala-Sa chose to stand up and take action.
In a desperate attempt to discover his true identity, the narrator decides to go back to Wisconsin. He was finally breaking free from captivity. The narrator was filling excitement and joy on his journey back home. He remembers every town and every stop. Additionally, he admires the natural beauty that fills the scenery. In contrast to the “beauty of captivity” (320), he felt on campus, this felt like freedom. No doubt, that the narrator is more in touch with nature and his Native American roots than the white civilized culture. Nevertheless, as he gets closer to home he feels afraid of not being accepted, he says “… afraid of being looked on as a stranger by my own people” (323). He felt like he would have to prove himself all over again, only this time it was to his own people. The closer the narrator got to his home, the happier he was feeling. “Everything seems to say, “Be happy! You are home now—you are free” (323). Although he felt as though he had found his true identity, he questioned it once more on the way to the lodge. The narrator thought, “If I am white I will not believe that story; if I am Indian, I will know that there is an old woman under the ice” (323). The moment he believed, there was a woman under the ice; He realized he had found his true identity, it was Native American. At that moment nothing but that night mattered, “[he], try hard to forget school and white people, and be one of these—my people.” (323). He
Gertrude Simmons Bonnin was one of the first American Indian writers to publish her work without the intervention of an editor, translator or sponsor. Bonnin was also the first writer to publish her work using her Lakota name Zitkala-Sa. I will be analyzing two of her most well known essays, The Cutting of my Long Hair and Why I Am a Pagan, both essays are found in School Days of an Indian Girl. Her work is related to cultural issues due to her native ancestry and her personal struggle to assimilation both between the Western culture and the Native American way of living. I will review these aspects within her writing in specific relation to
Julia Alvarez was an example of how a Latina writer identified herself in a new culture outside of her comfort zone. She, as a Dominican Diaspora, had to reinvent herself as she migrated into a new scenario. Her assimilation into the United States culture allowed her to understand and relate to the reader’s needs and points of interests. After all the effort, Alvarez kept in mind that she could not comfort to all the reality that she lived in, so she re-reinvented herself all over again to process her thoughts and beliefs into her life. She put her perspective on her writing so that the new wave of readers, even if they did not understand, could relate in some way and appreciate the differences. The sole purpose of her writings was for everyone to change their perspective from “walk to the other side of the street in order to avoid sharing the same sidewalk” to “I do not know them, but I do not avoid them because I do not know them”. She instilled in her reader’s mind how ordinary events were viewed differently through other cultures’ eyes. Her story Snow was a great example of how she portrayed her technique.
Andrew Wiget states that, "Though her language can be sentimental, Zitkala Sa uses her writing both as an outlet for personal expression and as a political weapon, which more closely aligns her with contemporary Native American writers "289. Indeed, Zitkala Sa writes her personal aoutobiography to depict the Native American children’s trauma after the colonizers remove them from their tribal community. She reavels their suffering after they found themselves counted as a minority. As a political activism, she uses her personal writings to plea for justice for the minority group she comes from. Moreover, she describes the tremendous changes in the Native American Children lives throoughout drawing some evidence from her personal life. Her writing stands against the the colonizers' goal which is to cause a cultural disopra in the identity of the Native American new generation. However, this chapter foucuses on Zitkala-Sa's experience with cultural displacement and demonstrates her a long journey into finding her real identity. It investigates how she refuses to be a confused person who has an indetermined identity as a result of the cultural repression and the inculturation she undergoes by the
In his essay titled Trans-National America, Randolph Bourne writes about the changes in American identity and ideals occurring at the time. He challenges the popular notion of America as a unique identity, one which outsiders must first shed their former identities to embrace. He advocates for transnationalism, a new idea that says that one can and should identify themselves as belonging to separate and equally valuable cultures. This idea of transnationalism and hyphenated identity are challenged in Sui Sin Far’s Leaves From the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian and by the character Mercedes from the film Lone Star.
Chimamada Adichie states “That is how to create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.” By this she is meaning that many times, stereotypes are formed about a single race or country and only that one side of an opinion is heard. Adichie, a story teller from Africa, experiences this first hand when she moved to the United States and realized most people think all Africans come from broken homes and extreme poverty. Since this, she is has been more conscious of how easy it can be to only listen to one opinion of a certain place or thing. In “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Adichie she wants to bring awareness to the audience that there are always two sides to every story. Adichie is successful in doing this because she uses Pathos and Logos in telling the audience her story.
Alexie writes, “In the Great American Indian novel, when it is finally written, all of the white people will be Indians and all of the Indians will be ghosts.” This emphasizes how our culture has co-opted the Indian culture (“white people must carry an Indian deep inside themselves”). The “inner Indian” must either be a healer or a warrior but only when it’s within a white person. This correlates with the point Hook makes in her essay about the role of the movie Hairspray. She writes, “When Traci says she wants to be black, blackness becomes a metaphor for freedom, an end to boundaries. Blackness is vital not because it represents the “primitive” but because it invited engagement in a revolutionary ethos that dares to challenge and disrupt the status quo. (37)” When we as a culture take on and appropriate the others we do it for selfish reasons, to heighten ourselves and our own emotions of excitement or whatever it is we are looking for. This happens until finally “white people will be Indians and all the Indians will be