The Lasting Impacts of Settler Colonialism: Are Indigenous communities content with the modern-day impacts of settler colonialism? This question is explored in the novel “Motorcycles & Sweetgrass” by Drew Hayden Taylor alongside Tomson Highway’s play “The Rez Sisters”, which depicts these themes through the perspective of Indigenous communities, shedding light on the idea of the lasting impacts of settler colonialism. Both texts convey the challenges of settler colonialism consisting of intergenerational trauma, loss of cultural identity, and economic struggles faced by the Indigenous characters. Firstly, Drew Hayden Taylor’s novel “Motorcycles and Sweetgrass” centers around Maggie Second, a single mother and chief of the Otter Lake reserve. …show more content…
John, who is represented as a mysterious figure in the novel, preaches traditional Anishnawbe spirituality. John helps Maggie and Virgil to go back to their Indigenous roots, addressing the intergenerational trauma that continues to pass through families, overall affecting their mental and emotional state of being. On the other hand, intergenerational trauma is represented in Tomson Highway’s “The Rez Sisters”. The lives of the seven Indigenous sisters on the reserve are portrayed with different personalities and relationships. When they interact with each other, the reader can reflect upon the personal experiences of the sisters that are caused by settler colonialism, specifically intergenerational trauma. Among the seven sisters, Marie-Adele Starblanket’s husband, Eugene, is seen to have struggled with alcohol abuse. Tomson Highway represents this through his illustration as it is a prevalent factor of intergenerational trauma within Indigenous communities. Secondly, in both “Motorcycles and Sweetgrass” and “The Rez Sisters,” characters such as Maggie Second and Emily Dictionary symbolize the loss of cultural identity, originating from the lasting impacts of settler …show more content…
John puts in the effort to help Maggie and Virgil as he sees that their Indigenous identities have been fading away. Through John’s assistance, Maggie soon embraces the once-forgotten Indigenous identity. She does this by participating in ceremonies and reconnecting with some spiritual beliefs that she had previously distanced from due to the lasting impacts of settler colonialism. The reader gets an overview of how colonialism has affected Indigenous people, specifically the loss of their true identity, showcased by Maggie and Virgil. Similarly, Emily Dictionary represents her loss of identity due to the impacts of settler colonialism. Throughout the play, Emily is seen to have violet outbursts and the way she channels her anger. Her character portrays how the suppression of Indigenous people and classism has affected all of the sisters, including Emily. She stressed that she does not have enough money to live. Throughout the illustration, Emily tries to find and reclaim her
In the novel Motorcycles and Sweetgrass, the community of Otter Lake is troubled by a mysterious man named John; that out of no where comes into town one day. John breaks into buildings and steals items from them, he deceives people to trick them into thinking something else, and he lies about his identity to everyone he introduces himself to. He becomes a bad influence on the community.
In Drew Hayden Taylor’s essays, he creates and manipulates various tones that each appeal to a different reader, which allows for his writings to be accepted and related to by various people. Through his use of shifting tones in “What’s an Indian worth These Days” and “Why did the Indian Block the Road”, from humorous to informative to sarcasm, Drew Hayden Taylor challenges stereotypes about First Nations people.
The book Motorcycles and Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor is considered by many that it is one of the best Native American book ever made. This novel shows how people have to adapt to modern day living while still being like their ancestors. These characters are trying to stay true to the indigenous way. John uses dancing to maintain Ojibway tradition. Maggie eats things like Italian food and she needs someone like John to help her believe in Ojibway beliefs and tradition. Wayne uses a twist on martial arts and isolating himself on an island to live like his ancestors. In the Novel Motorcycles and Sweetgrass, John, Maggie, and Wayne all try to maintain their Aboriginal roots while adapting to modern day life.
In An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s reexamines the American historical record and moves it passed the typical narratives of colonialism, revolution, and American exceptionalism. Dunbar-Ortiz’s analysis will impact the field of Native Studies and even general United States history with its examination and focus on settler colonialism as a genocidal policy. It is, as Dunbar-Ortiz argues, impossible to write American history without the acknowledgment of Indigenous peoples. Dunbar-Ortiz shatters the myth of “free land” and conquered Natives. She instead focuses on “the absence of a colonial framework (7),” which she believes is the reason that most historians overlook Indigenous history. In other words, historians need to view colonization as an ongoing process and not a
When an individual belongs to two different disadvantaged classes, the risk of abuse and discrimination multiplies. Thus, Native American women are at a very high risk of violence and sexual abuse. As of 2007, “One in three Native American women will be raped at some point in their lives, a rate that is more than double that for non-Indian women, according to a new report by Amnesty International” (Fears and Lydersen 1). This is exemplified in the novel in the rape, murder and mutilation of Evelyn Rose McCrae and Madeline Jeanette Lavoix. There was the possibility of a third assault and it occurs in front of the two brothers on New Year’s Eve. A car full of white men, one of which Jeremiah believes to be in his history class, pulls up in front of a young pregnant woman whom the young men jeer and proposition. All three women were Native American and in seedy neighbourhoods at the time that they were offered a ‘good time’, and the two were assaulted and murdered. The two assaults and murders were perpetrated by young men, and to be assumed as young white men. Through these encounters we can see how Native women were treated in the city as a twofold minority. In the setting of the city, Native American women are treated as lowly sex objects by the young men in all three instances. They had a lower social status as being both women and Native...
Both Emily and Maggie show resentment towards their sisters. The sisters who God rewarded with good looks and poise. Emily's mother points out the "poisonous feeling" between the sisters, feelings she contributed to by her inability to balance the "hurts and needs" of the two.
We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn 't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized.’ (25) This complete sheltering leaves Emily to play into with in her own deprived reality within her own mind, creating a skewed perception of reality and relationships”(A Plastic Rose,
When a native author Greg Sams said that the reservations are just “red ghettos”, the author David disagree with that. He thinks there must be something else beyond that point. After his grandfather died, he somehow changed his mind. Because he could not think anything e...
To most Americans today, life on the reservation is not at all like is glorified to be. Sherman Alexie uses his literary talent to expose the truth inside the reservation. In particular, in his short stories, “The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation No Longer Flashes Red,” “Every Little Hurricane,” and “Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven,” Alexie reveals the ever continuous cycle trend of alcoholism, poverty, and racial injustice from one generation to the next. As the trend continues, the earlier it seems that the Native American youth are falling into the habits and life choices of their parents. Thus, each of the previously stated short stories addresses the negative turn-of-events that lead to the Native American youth following the same corrupt path as the generations before them from a different angle to expose the truth within the reservation.
The destructive nature of cultural collision is symbolized when Emily’s lover, Rose, kills herself because of “how fuckin’ hard it is to be an Indian in this country” (Highway 97). The suicide of Rose, which happened when Rose “went head-on” into a “big 18-wheeler...like a fly splat against a windshield” shows the brutality of cultural collision (Highway 97). The rape of Zhaboonigan is an indicator of the violence inflicted on Natives (especially Native women), and functions as a metaphor for the “intrusive, destructive impact of one society on another” (Nothof 2). Cultural collision results in a fragmented society, where the subdued struggle with their identity as a result of the violent colonization of the dominant
Miss Emily’s isolation is able to benefit her as well. She has the entire town believing she is a frail and weak woman, but she is very strong indeed. Everyone is convinced that she could not even hurt a fly, but instead she is capable a horrible crime, murder. Miss Emily’s actions range from eccentric to absurd. After the death of her father, and the estrangement from the Yankee, Homer Barron, she becomes reclusive and introverted. The reader can find that Miss Emily did what was necessary to keep her secret from the town. “Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years” (247).
At the beginning of the story Emily is just an ordinary little girl, but as the story continues she begins to feel herself changing. By the end of the story, Emily has gained self-consciousness and thinks of herself not as an ordinary little girl but as “Emily”.
The world continually changes and yet Canada refuses to change its views on the Indigenous Peoples. In the novel, Motorcycles and Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor, a community is suffering under the thumb of society. The theme of acceptance in history regardless of the pain and suffering is explored to bring more peace. Assimilation has harmed many Indigenous Peoples and their way of life in the story. Their society needs to change to preserve the history of Indigenous Peoples. Everyone who lives in the community must know the truth of the land they stand on. The truth is vague because the trickster hid the truth to prevent the citizens from knowing who he truly is. In order to achieve peace and order, the social norm should be replaced with
Emily was kept confined from all that surrounded her. Her father had given the town folks a large amount of money which caused Emily and her father to feel superior to others. “Grierson’s held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (Faulkner). Emily’s attitude had developed as a stuck-up and stubborn girl and her father was to blame for this attitude. Emily was a normal girl with aspirations of growing up and finding a mate that she could soon marry and start a family, but this was all impossible because of her father. The father believed that, “none of the younger man were quite good enough for Miss Emily,” because of this Miss Emily was alone. Emily was in her father’s shadow for a very long time. She lived her li...