Feb 26 1993 (Literature myths).. the real people became invisible, both to themselves and to others. We Indians have been told who we are and we have never been allowed to change..
Blowing holes in Indian literature myths
by Jo Anne Baldinger
1993, Feb 26. The Santa Fe New Mexican
A fierce determination to retrieve a lost personal and cultural identity lies at the heart of American Indian literature today, say two of its most acclaimed scholars and practitioners.
Gerald Vizenor and Louis Owens, both professors in the University of California system – Vizenor at the Berkley campus, Owens at Santa Cruz --- …..
“Until recently, Indians have been represented in fiction by non-Indian writers, from James Fennimore Cooper to Mark Twain to Larry McMurtry,” Owens said. “From that perspective, the Indian is a metaphor without human dimension. Everyone knows the stereotypes: Indians are stoic; they don’t laugh or cry; they are silent; and they have a genetic predisposition not to break twigs. Europeans brought to this continent certain preconceptions about a new Garden of Eden, and they cast native people in a dual role. First, the Indian was the noble savage, the innocent in the garden. Later, Indians were perceived as the servants of Satan in the wilderness, a convenient justification for removing or killing them. In either case, the real people became invisible, both to themselves and to others. We Indians have been told who we are and we have never been allowed to change – we’re not supposed to watch the Superbowl or drive sports cars, for instance.”
Contemporary fiction by Indian writers is cutting through the false images, Owens said, citing the vast popularity of Louise Erdrich’s novel Love Medicine (Holt, Rhinehart). “Erdrich writes about people who are very recognizable and all have the foibles and flaws of real human beings. Her characters are allowed to be silly, cowardly, brave, whatever – they are rounded human beings.”
The author of Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian novel and The Sharpest Sight, both from the Univ. of Oklahoma Press, Owens is of mixed Choctaw, Cherokee and Irish descent.
He notes that most contemporary Indian writers – Erdrich, Scott Momaday, Paula Gunn Allen, Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch, Joy Harjo and Michael Dorris, to name just a few – are of mixed Indian or Indian-European blood.
Just as James Joyce exiled himself from Ireland and spent the rest of his life writing about it, Owens said, “It seems we had to leave the reservation in order to write about it. That’s starting to change now, with a new generation of literature emerging from more traditional communities. But virtually all previous fiction has come from mixed-blood Native Americans with urban rather than rural experiences.”
Gerald Vizenor, whose numerous books include the American Book Award winner: Griever: An American Monkey King in China (Illinois State Univ); Interior Landscapes” Autobiographical Myths and Metaphors (Univ. of Minnesota) and a new novel titled Dead Voices (Univ of Oklahoma), is of mixed Chippewa and French blood.
His writing has focused on the double bias faced by “crossbloods” like himself who were raised in urban settings.
“I grew up in Minneapolis being told that I was no longer really Indian,” Vizenor said. “Of course, that was not true. But life is often arranged for us in these categories before we are aware of it, and I had to leave home to understand what was being done to me.” [He enlisted in the military, was stationed in Japan, had epiphanies about his own life experiences.]
”I remember being overwhelmed by a very simple insight: here was a culture that lived by its literature. So when I returned to the U.S., I was motivated to go to college, something I had never thought of before, with the plan of becoming a writer. Writing is my invitation to survival. It has allowed me to reach past the stereotypes and contradictions that conventionally define who we are.”
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| 1993, Feb 26. The Santa Fe New Mexican |
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