bad historical fiction - bias - Oyate

[Debbie Reese <d-reese@UIUC.EDU>]

I'd like to add to the discussion about bad historical fiction that has
turned to a discussion of the validity of the critiques on the Oyate
website.  Like the previous posts, this will be long.

I am Pueblo Indian, born and raised on a reservation in northern New
Mexico. After high school, I got a teaching degree in Albuquerque. I got a
job teaching an a boarding school for Native children in Oklahoma. While
there, I took classes, earning a degree from the U of Oklahoma in school
administration. In both places, the population of Native Americans was
relatively high. In New Mexico, the Hispanic and white kids I went to
public school with knew a lot about Native Americans. Later as a teacher in
Alb. and Oklahoma, the same was true. Stereotypes of Native Americans
didn't have much power.

In the early 90s I decided to begin work on a doctorate. The U of I was
recruiting us (myself and my husband). One meeting remains very clear in my
memory. The professor told us about a controversy taking place at the U of
I, over the school mascot, which is an Indian chief called Chief Illiniwek.
I shrugged it off. I remember saying "I'm not an activist" and something to
the effect that I wasn't worried about this controversy, nor did I think
the protest had much merit. At the time, I thought the protesters were
radicals with a big beef over nothing.

So my husband and I packed up our household goods and our three year old
daughter's toys (educational ones, mind you, we're both schoolteachers).
Just prior to our departure, our daughter danced for the first time. By
"danced" I mean she learned a traditional Pueblo Indian dance. Our dances
are not for entertainment or performed for an audience; they are best
thought of as "prayer in motion." They're very long, the commitment is
extensive, but the goodness that comes from it is powerful.

In our first weeks in Champaign/Urbana, I came to realize just how little
people here know about Native Americans. Some of it is laughable. Some of
it is outrageous, some of it is sad. As I came to realize the depths to
which their information (I hesitate to call it knowledge) was based on
stereotypes (both negative and positive ones) from the media - movies,
books, TV shows. Along with the stereotypes, there was a bias that had
developed. This bias predisposed them to react in a certain way to me and
the other Native students on campus.

Sometimes, upon meeting someone for the first time, there was this sort of
reverence towards me, this respect for me - not as a human being, or a
woman in graduate school, or a caring mother - but as an Indian who,
because of my heritage, must have uncommon wisdom and knowledge. Sometimes
an individual would invite me to come speak to their civic group, class,
etc. Invariably, they'd ask me to tell a story, or dance for them. I'd
graciously decline, explaining that I'm not a storyteller, and that our
dances are prayer, but that I'd gladly come talk about contemporary Pueblo
culture, or some issue we struggle with. They'd not take this offer. They
really wanted me to be the Indian in their imagination. That was a "real
Indian" and I must not be full-blood or must be fake somehow, because I
wasn't what I was supposed to be.

In my research, I look critically at the children's books about Native
Americans, and those that use Native imagery in some way. I present that
research in various places. I presented it a few years ago to the UIUC
Board of Trustees at a monthly meeting. They were poised to make a decision
about whether or not to retire the school mascot. My approach, as a
teacher, had been to talk about contemporary Native culture and children's
books to those who invited me to do so (rather than join protest marches,
etc.). I believe education is the way to achieve long-lasting change. So I
presented my research. I didn't say anything about the mascot. However, the
mascot looks very much like one of the predominant stereotypes of Native
Americans in children's books (large feathered headdress/warbonnet, fringed
buckskin, arms raised in reverence--a noble character). My emphasis was on
the predominant images (another one is the savage) and how these images
work their way into what children believe about Native Americans. I hoped
they'd see how they, an educational institution, were inadvertently
contributing to misinformation. My presentation received coverage by the
local newspaper. A few days later, in a letter to the editor, I was called
a mis-guided rabble rouser who oughtta go home.

I'm an adult, and a teacher, and as such I respond to doubts about my
"realness" and name-calling in a specific way. I understand why people
respond and think as they do, and I think about how to help them gain a
better understanding. In many ways, we are the product of our experiences,
and if our experiences have been narrow, then we have a different
understanding than if we'd had wider, broader exposure to, in this case,
Native Americans. As an adult, as a teacher, I respond in a pro-active way,
if not right then at the moment, I incorporate the information into later
work, tweeking my words, phrases, etc.

But not everyone responds this way. My daughter is hurt when children argue
that she can't possibly be Native American because she doesn't look like
Pocahontas. Many Native people who've come to UIUC to study have left,
without a degree. They can't bear living in a place where they have to hide
their identity or else argue that yes, they are real Native American, and
explain over and over again what their lives are like, etc., explain over
and over what they think about the mascot, Thanksgiving, etc.  These
questions come from people who, I believe, are sincerely seeking
information. Maybe they know that the info they've gotten up to then is
flawed or biased. Whatever the reason, the number of their questions, and
the number of the people who ask them, indicate just how vast the problem is.

So, in the last eight years, I've come to a different position than I had
when I moved to Illinois. The work done by groups like Oyate is critical.
Like many of you, I was rather skeptical about work that focused on bias,
or stereotypes. I suspected it of being revisionist. I see it very
differently now, based on my personal experiences in an area of the country
where there is very little available to balance the depictions of Native
people in the movies, television, and yes, children's books. I believe the
cumulative effect of all those depictions predisposes us to be unwilling to
hear the critiques.

As the LM-NETTER from Wisconsin pointed out, not all tribes are the same.
What is problematic for one tribe may not be for the next. But! All tribes
must deal with biased views about their history. If we're safely nestled in
amongst our people, we don't have to deal with the fallout of those biased
views. Once we leave those nests, however, it is a different story. Too
many Native people have, because of this situation, returned to the
reservation without a degree. (I'm not saying this is the single reason
graduation rates of Native Americans is so low, but it is a factor.) With a
degree, they could be empowered to attend to the multiple issues Native
people deal with - alcoholism and poverty are just two. But getting that
education may mean venturing out to places like U of Illinois, and instead
of just studying to get that degree (and U of I is at the very top in
library schools) Native people have to deal with all sorts of unexpected
situations related to Native culture. That can makes it hard to study, to
get finished, to graduate, to become empowered.

I'll stop here, noting that while we may object to the material Oyate
presents as biased and revisionist, we must pause and listen. Will we be
hurt by that pause? No. Will COURAGE OF SARAH NOBLE be removed from shelves
because of Oyate's review? No. Will we be changed by thinking about the
Oyate critiques? Maybe. Maybe we'll be more critical ourselves, and maybe
we'll end up with more books on our shelves that present Native Americans
(warts and all) as a people, rather than a romantic, heroic people, or a
savage, brutal people. And that's got to be the place we want to be.

Debbie Reese




___________________________________________

Debbie Reese, Visiting Lecturer
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
Email: d-reese@uiuc.edu
___________________________________________

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