Introduction and Professional Resource

Introduction:

For my project on the literature of a traditionally underrepresented group I choose to focus on American Indian literature. Initially, this might not seem like an underrepresented group. The Native American theme is very popular in children’s books and there are many award winning children’s novels with an Indian theme. Yet, in a flashback to the insider/outside debate, the story of American Indians is still underrepresented. In African American literature, or Asian American literature, the author usually belongs to that cultural group. Yet with Native American literature the author is very rarely native. In 1995 98.5% of children’s books with an Indian theme were written by non-native authors. This outsider approach has created a homogenous view of American Indians. In 1994 out of 70 books published, only 31 specified a certain Indian nation. When they did specify, more often than not it was Navajo or Cherokee. As a result, children are often left with a very outdated picture of who the American Indian is. They see them stereotyped and permanently stuck in the past, wearing feathers in their hair and painting their faces to go to war. The picture of the contemporary Indian is lost in most current children’s literature. In the three books that I have reviewed the main character is Indian, but each has an individual tribe name identified and none of them are what is considered a “mainstream” tribe name like the Cherokee. While factually correct literature about American Indians from the past is important, it is also vital that children realize that Indians are not just something in our past. All the books I looked at are set in contemporary times and each chooses to grapple with the stereotypes of the contemporary American Indian in their own unique and authentic way. One of the authors chose to buck the stereotype that all modern Indians are poor and alcoholics. The other two authors chose to deal with some of the difficult issues surrounding current Native culture. Each of the authors is an insider to their own story and they each give us their tales with style. Most importantly, the protagonists in each story are able to offer the reader a “window and a mirror” with characters that the reader can really imagine instead of the image of the fanciful Indian in the woods or prairies of long ago America.

Professional Resource:

Knoeller, Christian P., and Gail Zdilla. "A First Opinion: Breaking Down Stereotypes of Contemporary. A Second Reaction: A Strong Adolescent Voice Reflects American
Indian Life" Rev. of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. First Opinions, Second Reactions Sept. 2008: 25-28.

This review consisted of two separate “looks” at the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. The reviewers were college English professors, not necessarily experts in the field of Native American literature, but credentials beyond that were not provided. The “first opinion” primarily discussed the multiple social issued raised in Sherman Alexie’s work. It provided an in-depth look at some of the themes explored in the novel, including social acceptance, alcoholism, and death. Knoeller also spends time discusses the cartoons that are included in the novel and while he provides brief titles of the various cartoons, without having read the book it would be difficult to ascertain their value or what they added to the reading of the novel. Nevertheless, Knoeller seems to have captured the spirit of the novel when he describes it as having, “playful illustrations, disarmingly candid narrator, and pitch-perfect humor.”
The “second reaction” of this review focused on how this novel could be used in a school setting as an accompaniment to learning about Native Americans. Zdilla almost immediately raises the concern discussed in the introduction of this paper, that children in schools today do not spend nearly enough time learning about the contemporary American Indian. The review discusses how this novel will appeal to young readers because many of the situations will appear familiar to them even if the protagonist does not have all of the same experiences. This too reflects the “mirror and window” analogy. Zdilla raised the idea that reluctant readers may use the cartoon illustrations to be drawn further into the text and this is an interesting idea. When considering whether this novel would be a good addition to your classroom experience, Zdilla’s closing comments are a vital thought to remember. “Junior’s voice will stay with adolescent readers and help them understand the reservation experience, haunted by alcohol abuse and oppression but rich in family love, and know something about what it feels like to be American Indian in a White world.” In order to help give students a different perspective on their world, one of the goals of multicultural literature, Zdilla seems to argue that Part-Time Indian would be a way to achieve this.

Review of American Indian Literature

Book Reviews:

Smith, Cynthia Leitich. Rain is Not My Indian Name. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

Rain didn’t know the evening that she and her best friend Galen snuck out to celebrate New Year’s Eve alone that it would be the last night she saw him alive. It wasn’t her fault that he died, but Galen’s mother doesn’t seem to want to forgive her so Rain decides to lock herself away in her own world of hurt and guilt. It isn’t until her aunt decides to start an Indian Camp in her hometown that Rain must come out and make a stand. The city council is not sure whether to give Rain’s aunt funding for her camp and Galen’s mother is absolutely against it, especially since Rain herself is not planning on joining the camp. But Rain is more interested in her photography than studying her native heritage. Smith artfully weaves the story of Rain’s torn feelings about not participating in Indian camp well with her guilt and sadness over Galen’s death. Rain is a “mixed blood” Indian, so while she identifies with her Indian roots, it is not the only thing that defines her. Her brother’s hair is blonde and does not look Indian at all, while Rain has darker hair. Still, she is often approached by people who claim that she doesn’t “seem Indian.” Smith presents an image of how one can be Indian while living in the suburbs instead of on a reservation. Her family is broken up but that’s because her mother died several years ago and her father is in the military, not because of alcohol or drug abuse. While it was sometimes difficult to connect with the parade of characters marching in and out of this novel, Smith seemed to be trying to explicitly paint Rain as a normal suburban girl dealing primarily with the death of her best friend and the drama at home after Rain’s brother finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant. Although her aunt’s Indian camp is part of the novel, Smith chose not to make being Indian a conflicted part of Rain’s identity. In doing so, she was able to focus more fully on developing the other parts of Rain’s character.

Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little, Brown
and Company, 2007.

Junior has a problem. He is too skinny, his head is too big, and he has a list of medical problems longer than his size 11 feet. Unfortunately, that isn’t his biggest problem. Junior has decided to transfer from his school on the rez to the Reardan Public School- and turning your back on your people to go to the white school is just something you don’t do if you want to have any friends left. But Junior wants to be a cartoonist, and he knows he has to leave the rez to find hope outside of the troubles with abuse and alcohol that are unfortunately all too common on the rez. To help show Junior’s skill as an artist, Ellen Forney has illustrated the novel with cartoons that Junior has created that are both hilarious and at the same time poignantly paint the picture of the struggles of a young boy dealing with poverty and with what it means to be Indian. One cartoon lists: Why I Actually Miss a Lot of School, with reasons like no money, wakes and funerals, and couldn’t find a ride. Readers will delight in finding each new cartoon which adds a powerful additional dimension to the telling of Junior’s story. Every day is a struggle for Junior to make his way twenty miles down the road to the white school. While Junior didn’t ever seem to fit in on the rez, at least they all looked the same as him. Now he has to deal with fitting in at the white school. To help, he joins the basketball team and befriends the prettiest girl in school, a slightly improbable turn of events. But his troubles aren’t over yet because his new basketball team is scheduled to play his old basketball team from the rez this year. Alexie is not afraid to grapple with many of the problems currently plaguing Indian families in contemporary times- from alcohol and drug misuse, to abuse, to death. Yet he does it so skillfully that instead of having the reader look down upon Junior’s community, they are hopeful for the future. This mix of hope and trouble and nothing but the brutal truth was masterfully blended to leave the reader not sure whether to laugh or cry. One thing is for sure, Sherman Alexie has created a must read novel for readers of any age.

Van Camp, Richard. The Lesser Blessed. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntrye, 1996.

High school senior Larry narrates this moving tale of love, loss, and what friendship really means. Larry is a Dogrib Indian who lives with his single mother in a small community in northern Canada. While not always popular, he pays attention in school and seems to be a good student until he meets Johnny Beck, a rebel who doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything. Larry is immediately drawn to this freewheeling lifestyle because he seems anything but; he’s skinny, nervous, and deathly afraid of girls. Yet the two of them bond and Larry gradually sinks into the life of a hard partier. Van Camp is not one to shy away from explicit sexual scenes and drug use, which might not make this appropriate for younger readers, but at the same time they seem absolutely necessary to convey the story that he is trying to tell. They are used not in a way that condones such behavior, but they to help illuminate the true human condition through the moments of clarity Larry has about his childhood while he is high. While Van Camp traditionally writes novels for an adult audience, his first foray into young adult fiction has an appeal that will reach out to both adolescents and adults alike. The language is almost lyrical at times and it jumps off the page and deep into your psyche. At one point Larry and Johnny are high and stumbling down the street late at night when they see two drunken brothers fighting with each other over nothing. Larry turns to Johnny and says, "They're ghosts Johnny. Nobody's told them they died. Nobody's told them they're dead.” These haunting insights into the effects of drugs and alcohol on a person are sprinkled throughout the tale, whether Larry is really aware of it or not. This story will keep you up late at night burrowed under your covers due to Van Camp’s tremendous power as a story teller. His haunting tale does not end once you have finished the last page but sticks to your soul, just like Larry’s childhood terrors have stuck to his.

Religion in children's texts

First of all, I would like to thank Ilyssa and Mallory for sharing with us in class their Jewish heritage last week. It made me realize how very little that I knew about this culture/faith. Why is it that we seem to learn so little about different religions? Religion has caused more conflict and war over the history of humankind than just about anything else- so why have we not yet realized that we should encourage people to have more than just a rudimentary understanding of world religions other than their own. Knowledge can lead to understanding. While I was raised Catholic, I have struggled with my own faith and I think there is still so much more I could learn. We briefly hit on various religions in Habibi and then in Closet Catholic but under the multicultural umbrella you could explore so many different religions. This does not need to be a taboo topic in schools. While we discussed some of the issues surrounding Habibi, that does not mean that there are other books that could be used as well. Closet Catholic presented two different faiths and I think most of the class agreed they did not find it offensive. It would be interesting to find books representing even more faith communities in children's literature. This would provide a safe environment to learn about different religions and open a communication in the classroom about beliefs that are universal. This provides another look at the term multicultural.

Is multi-cultural only about race?

I started reading our next book, Boy Meets Boy, this week for our next class. I like to discuss the books/subjects we are discussing in TE 448 with friends and family on occasion but I was surprised that everyone I talked to didn't seem to agree that a book like this belonged in a multicultural class. Is this just a sign of multicultural not really being quite the right word to use to encompass everything we discuss, perhaps if I said diversity like the class title does I would have gotten a different result. I like to think of multicultural as encompassing themes and ideas that typically do not crop up in mainstream children's literature. With this definition, I think Boy Meets Boy fits in nicely. Perhaps because this topic is such a hot button in the news right now people are just less comfortable with talking about it than with various racial issues.

more stereotypes

On the first day of class we discussed what books we enjoyed/identified with when we were younger. I listed one of my favorite childhood books, Walk Two Moons. Tonight I was spending time on D. Reese's blog looking for some articles to accompany the novels that I have read when I found a review for this book. It was sorted under the label of Not Recommended. The main character identified herself as being part Indian (it is set in contemporary times) and there were many references to "Indian" ideas that were not at all correct. I am still amazed at the prevalance of these stereotypes. I am starting to feel like up until this class every single book that I've read with an Indian character in it was somehow stereotypical. Equally disturbing, it seems like very few people see this as a problem or even think there is another way to learn about Native American culture. Oyate is a website/book store that specializes in selling books from Native authors. Most of these books have only been published by small independent presses. On the site, a list of approved books is included for teaching students about Thanksgiving for those that want their only unit on the subject to occur the week before Thanksgiving. At least this way their information will be correct.

Also on that site is a collection of stories that are quite disturbing about teacher's using books in schools that were historically inaccurate and how much they were willing to defend their choices. I would check it out http://www.oyate.org/livingstories.html and also some of the other books on Oyate's site.

Final Project

For my final project I am working on spending time researching American Indian novels. I am excited because I contacted Debbie Reese to ask her to help me locate some exceptional young adult novels and she e-mailed me back three suggestions and I was able to track down all three novels. I have spent some time thinking about novels that I have read that had the theme of American Indians in them and more often than not they were like the My Heart is on the Ground Dear America book that we looked at in class. While I'm on this topic, I was a little bit surprised to then see a Dear America book listed as a good example of Hawaiian culture in one of our coursepack readings for this week. Is this an example of differing opinions or is quality control vastly different in the Dear America series?

While I was exploring Debbie Reese's blog she had a link to a blog "How to write a historical young adult novel with an Indian theme (for fun and profit)" While it was a very humorous list, it was sad to realize it was funny mostly because nearly everything she said was true. Some of the things on her list:
Name your characters in the traditional Indian way, using the formula that has been followed for decades: an adjective or participle followed by a noun.

In one of my other classes my group just finished reading Sing Down the Moon which was a Newberry Honor book. In it there are names like Bright Morning which clearly follows the formula.

Another requirement for writing a novel:
Never, ever have your Indian characters use contractions. Indians did not do that.

We saw this come up over and over in My Heart is on the Ground

For the full text of this blog post http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2008/02/beverly-slapins-how-to-write-historical.html

I definately recommend you check it out.

I'm so glad that I will have some examples of really good novels about Native Americans to share with you at the end of the class. Hopefully after this project I can find novels to use in my own classroom that won't make me cringe when I hear some of the things that were on the list that I linked to above.

Spanish italics

When I was reading through Becoming Naomi Leon and then some of the other books that we read in class I wondered why everytime a Spanish word was used it had to be in italics. This seems to go against the idea of using a Spanish word just because the author felt it was the only word that really fit there. Italics are generally designed to call attention to something. Why an author feels the need to draw attention to words that are not English made me think. Doesn't the attention create an environment of English and not English, of us and "the other". Perhaps I'm reading into it negatively. Instead of creating a dividing environment maybe the author just wanted the reader to celebrate the differences.

Maybe even more realistically, that's what the publisher asked for so they could market it as a more multicultural book. Parents might pick up a book with Spanish words in it thinking it will be great for their kids to learn a few new words. Like I talked about in class though, I am not sure if Spanish words can really be integrated into a book like the author wants and be a prominent vocabulary lesson at the same time. You will just end up with redundancy which might frustrate bilingual readers. I tried to look up this issue online but wasn't able to uncover anything specifically.

Overall, I just find it hard to believe that an author/publisher really wants to make a sentence flow smoothly with both English and Spanish words if every single Spanish word is differentiated by the use of italics to draw attention to its use. I will try to continue looking to see if I can find any information on this use.

Addition: I found this Q & A online talking about this issue

Dear Mexican: Why are words in Spanish in your column in italics? I feel that including Spanish and Spanglish slang in articles should be read in a natural, conversational way and not be treated specially. When I read these italicized words, I feel I should make quote signs with my fingers and read them in a more American accent. Maybe that's just the way I read them, but wouldn't it be more worthy to integrate those words into the American language? Either way, it's something that bugs me in general, not really aimed at your article.
Putting the "Fun" in "Fundamentalist Grammar"
Dear Wab: Although the Mexican treats American immigration law the same way his countrymen regard the U.S. soccer team, he must grovel to the caudillos that are his copy editors, all of whom would deport me if I didn't italicize Spanish words. It's an arcane rule devised long ago by gabachos who figured gabacho readers were too pendejos to know when a word was foreign. I agree that America should integrate more Spanish words than those found on menus and place names — that's why I use so many of them. Although some Chicano authors don't italicize Spanish or Spanglish words as a political statement against God-knows-what, I like slanting palabras — it's a constant reminder for gabachos to get with the programa.

Al Capone

I was reflecting on our previous discussion of Al Capone and of literature featuring disablities (for lack of a better term) in general. It really seems to me like it is the forgotten area of multicultural literature. I tried to reflect on my own reading as a student in elementary school and while I can recall reading books about people of various races, I cannot ever remember reading any sort of book that had people in it with disabilities. In fact, the only book I can remember at all had a main character that was blind, but that was a book I bought and read on my own outside of school. In high school, students that had severe physical or emotional learning disabilities were really kept separate from the rest of the students. They rode a separate bus and had their own classroom. This complete separation is really not beneficial to anyone. Students initial curiosity can lead eventually to discrimination. That is why it seems so important to include books featuring characters like this in them. In Al Capone the sister was not the main character, but it captured her life in a way that did not make her awkward or weird. The important part of the book was the relationship between two siblings. It is important for students to see that all people have qualities that make them unique and we should embrace that instead of being afraid of it.

Schneider Family Book Award

Our group conducted research into the Schneider Family Book Award. This award is sponsored by the American Library Association and is given out each year in three different categories, birth through grade school, middle school, and teens. The award honors an author or illustrator that has written about the experience of living with disabilities, either physical, mental, or emotional, for teens and children. The work must portray the person with disabilities living life to the fullest. The award was started in 1994 by Dr. Katherine Schneider and it was modeled after the Coretta Scott King award. As Dr. Schneider says, “The disability experience in these wonderful children’s books is a part of a character’s full life, not the focus of the life. . . . The bonus is that children get to experience someone else’s world which involves having a disability or having a family member with a disability.”

The award is given by a committee of 7 members selected by the ALA.

This years award winners are as follows:
Young Children- Piano Starts Here: The Young Art Tatum by Robert Andrew Parker
Middle School- Waiting for Normal by Leslie Conner
Teen- Jerk, California by Jonathan Friesen

Another award winner was Becoming Naomi Leon which is one the books for our TE 448 class.

Organization of poetry

In class we started an interesting discussion pertaining to how the author of Bronx Masquerade organized her book in reference to the order of poems and chapters. Before class I hadn't really spent much time thinking about it but now it has raised some questions in my mind. I really enjoyed the book, especially the poetry, but I do often enjoy reading poetry. When I was reading this book I would read the chapters silently to myself but whenever I got to a poem I would have to read it aloud, I feel I can't appreciate poems as well unless I can really hear how they sound when they are being read. With that said, does it make a difference whether the poems come first or the chapter comes first? The way it was set up the reader read about the particular characters issues, then read the poem they had written. Someone raised the point that this really was opposite of how the characters in the book would have experienced it. When someone read their poem this would have been their first time looking deeper into their classmates feelings and experiences. Why then, would the author want the reader to have the background knowledge first?

What I really enjoy about poetry is the struggle combined with the mystery. Since poetry often is so brief it is difficult to understand the message the author might be trying to convey at first. It takes a lot of work to really get at the meaning behind a poem. Ultimately, you never really know if you're right or wrong, which is where the mystery comes in. When you know the author's background and reasons for writing the poem first, a lot of this is taken away. Yet I recognize that I am speaking from the perspective of someone that enjoys this about poetry. Evident even in our class, many students do not enjoy poetry and it is difficult to get them to read it. If the author was marketing this book at a junior high/high school age group she surely must have been aware of this. If her primary intention was to tell a story and have students enjoy the poetry she was writing, it may have been necessary to give background information first. This makes the poetry more understandable right away and perhaps allows the reader to track how some of the characters thoughts are expressed in his poetry.

It really is fascinating to think about all the choices that authors must make when writing a novel. So many things can impact the readers experience.

Habibi.. thoughts

I read through Habibi and when I finished it I wasn't quite sure what to think. So I decided to go through all of the coursepack readings and I still wasn't sure. Then I just sat and thought about the book for a veery long time and I realized there is a lot more to the novel than I originally caught. I found this letter that the author Naomi Nye wrote to "Would be Terrorists" http://godlas.myweb.uga.edu/shihabnye.html. She discusses how much time she spends writing in to newspapers, lawmakers, etc. regarding the United States unfair policies on Israel. This reminded me of a State News article a few weeks ago. I do not have a link for it but it was about two Arab American girls that were holding a sit in at their congressmen's office until he was willing to speak to them about the United States support for Israel in light of the recent conflict occuring there. Thinking about this side of the debate caused me to spend some time looking for examples of how Nye shows United States support towards Israel in the book and it cropped up several times. One time Liyana and her brother and directly addressing American citizens to explain to them how the United States supplies Israeli soldiers with guns and money. This is a very important issue for a lot of people but it seems like its something that does not get discussed very much. When I get some time I will need to go searching for more of Nye's writings to see how she writes about this issue even more.

Insider v Outsider

If I were to follow Shannon's personal definition of himself, then I would be nearly the same as him on all counts but gender. Growing up, many of the stories that I read were considered fairly mainstream literature and it was not hard to picture myself as any of the white female characters. They often had stories similar to mine, or at least close enough for me to imagine. Does this make me an insider? I'm not sure. I don't know how one goes about getting on the "inside". Maybe this is just because I have always benefited from being able to easily relate to literature that I am reading. Maybe I take it for granted. Does the skin color or gender or religion of the character matter more, or are the issues more important? Are the two so inextricably interwoven that they cannot be separated? I have difficulty believing that anyone can neatly fit into either group. Sometimes people can be in and then they can be out because everyone is made up of their own history and their own problems and views. I think what is important is evaluating your own stance on every text, whether it makes you feel like an insider or an outsider, and then to ask yourself why this is so. Good literature should help you look inside yourself. This can still be accomplished whether you feel like the character in the book mirrors your own life or not.

Who gets included in the term multicultural?

Before coming into this class when I heard the term diverse or multicultural literature my first thought probably would have been race, African Americans, Indians, Arabs, Asian, etc. I probably would not have included white and it also wouldn't have occured to me to really think too much about gender issues or ideas of religion. I have been working on the readings for our upcoming class period and I was amazed at the reaction Patrick Shannon sparked with his article. I will need to reread some of the articles again but at first the writers that were responding to Shannon's article seemed almost defensive that he said they thought race deserved the most recognition in regards to multicultural literature. It made me stop and think about my own definitions again. The Cai article goes through and lists various definitions for what multiculturalism might mean and they all have some basis and it would be extremely difficult for me to pick the one that I think is the best.

The community I came from was very homogenous in regards to just about everything, race, religion, socioeconomic status. While I love my community I have also seen some of the detrimental effects of not learning enough about other cultures. I would like to someday get a job in the same area so I can see my future role as a teacher including bring in books about many many topics to expose these children to cultures and ideas that they do not come into daily contact with. This means going beyond just racial issues and bringing in texts about different religious practices or different family lives.

This brings up an important point in my mind though. What is the main purpose of diverse literature, or does there need to be a point? Should a teacher include diverse literature in her classroom so every student can find a book that he or she can connect with on a personal level, or should diverse literature be brought into the classroom so students can explore cultures different from their own? I think both of these answers are right but they are questions I will be exploring as the semester continues.

Poem

Where I’m From


I am Anne with an e
But don’t ask me to recite Anne of Green Gables
I was never a fan

I read “Little House” and cheered for Laura Ingalls
With stacks of books covering every space in my bedroom
Bringing me to faraway places

I am not from “Up North”
I’m from da U.P. eh?
No, not Canada, Michigan has two peninsulas

My community is logging and mining and farming
With wide open fields and tall, tall trees
But most of all, loving

I am from hunting and fishing and skiing
Fish boils each summer and venison all November
And sometimes even flannel wearing

But we’re not backwards or backwoods or back anything
Every car in my yard is running
And the bathroom in my house has real indoor plumbing

I am from the smell of fresh cut grass
Swinging a golf club through the sweet dew
Enjoying an early round on the course

I am from summers spent under the stars
Camping with smoky fires and s’mores
With the smell of sunscreen and warm summer days

I am from a family of five
With five generations of parents and grandparents all from my little town
I would never trade where I am from

Books

I'm very excited for the upcoming semester in part due to the wide variety of literature that we will be exploring. I have always enjoyed young adult literature because it is always just so fun to read. Our coursepack readings for the week about Native American literature really interested me. I found it rather incredible that such a small percentage of Native American literature is actually written by Native Americans. Do we feel like Native American stories have become more like lore than true stories? This seems to relate back to young children refusing to believe that there are still Indians in this country even though they do not wear "traditional" outfits. I never really realized that there was that perception among many children because growing up near several reservations there were several Native Americans that attended my school. Many of them still celebrated their history and would attend pow-wows and they would explain it to the rest of the students. When I read Heart of a Chief, our novel for this week, I thought it was good that the book was placed in present time so that students could identify with the main character more. Then I read another one of our coursepack readings that talked about how it was initially difficult to get her story published because her stories involved Native Americans but that was not the focal point of the story. The editors were not impressed because the character was middle class which did not fit in with the stereotype. This led me to question the image that the novel put forth of the people living on the reservation all being very poor. Now I'm not sure if it's further perpetuating a stereotype or not.