The New Native Renaissance’s Resistance through Literature

The New Native Renaissance’s Resistance through Literature 

It always amazes me how many different things the act of writing can become. It began of course simply as a method of communication. However, now, putting pen to paper, or rather passing fingers over keyboard as is more common today, is hardly ever just uncomplicated, straightforward communication. Writing has become a space for creation, record, expression, earning a livelihood, and so much more. And from this plethora of things that writing and literature can be, I find most fascinating their use as a means of resistance.

For a long time, I had associated resistance through literature with areas of high political drama. Such places were mostly outside the Western world, and the writing was in languages that are not English. The countries reeled under the grip of authoritarian or unstable governments driven by radical and scary ideologies. News from such places was constantly laden with strife, and there seemed to be no allowance for people to be independent individuals within those borders. In fact, the individual is forced into a subaltern position, and any writing that strays from the accepted mainstream is resistance.

Unfortunately, in assuming that resistance literature is mainly from outside the Western world, I had also forgotten a huge chunk of the history of my own country – the politically driven extermination, then termination and erasing of the indigenous population. I had forgotten this extremely violent aspect of American history, and been lulled by the images of Native Americans that are most commonly visible in the media. They’re often not really there, or there as benign, calm characters separate from the hustling and busy American. They seem to live away from cities, in a state of communion with nature and spirits and entities far beyond the grasp of other people. I had bought into this misrepresentation, and in a way dismissed Native Americans as real people, scarred but surviving, with voices and emotions that are not simply other-worldly. 

This line of thought was brought to a grinding halt when I picked up Tommy Orange’s There There. Reading the novel, and then Terese Marie Mailhot’s memoir Heart Berries, shattered the misconceptions that I now see had sheltered me, and a lot of other people as well. It also made me rethink my notions of what resistance through literature looked like.

These two widely acclaimed books are considered to have started a ‘New Native Renaissance’, a new wave of indigenous literature distinct from those of the 1960s and 1990s. At the same time, they are also very different from each other.

In There There, Tommy Orange steps out of the reservation – the primary setting for most stories about Native Americans – and steps into the city. His novel traces the experience of several urban Indians as they gather in Oakland for a powwow. It brings alive a cast of characters that is far from the stereotype of Native Americans that is most prominent in the media. It paints a picture of a struggle to locate an identity that’s been uprooted and dislocated. The experience has slipped through the cracks often and is invisible to most North Americans. 

Reading There There gives a glimpse at a race that is often deliberately shaded and hidden from public view. But the book has ripped aside the curtain, and that act feels like one of resistance. 

Heart Berries was a much more jarring wake-up call. It is a painful coming of age story riddled with poverty, abuse, and addiction. Terese Marie Mailhot grew up on the Seabird Island First Nation in British Columbia, Canada. Her mother was an activist, but often absent, and her father, a terrifying figure, was sent to prison for abduction. She was put into foster care, and soon after aging out, married. At her divorce, she lost custody of her first child. Through all this, Terese Mailhot also struggled with mental health issues.

Painful as it is to read, Heart Berries also brings to the fore a strikingly fierce and bold individual voice. “My story was maltreated”, Mailhot says in the book. Through her writing, she reclaims her voice and her story. She is baldly honest about herself and her experiences as an individual, reflecting Nobel Prize winner Gao Xinjiang’s advice to “return to the individual”. Firmly establishing one’s self becomes a method of resistance in a system that largely ignores and sidelines the indigenous community. 

While very much individual, by writing and publishing her story, Terese Mailhot also gives a voice and representation to the several indigenous women who go missing or are murdered. The crisis has reached epidemic proportions in Canada and the US, but outside of a few select spaces, is rarely spoken of. 

Both Orange and Mailhot, are graduates of the MFA program at IAIA, the Institute of American Indian Arts. It allowed them to create their craft in a manner independent from that imposed by most other white-dominated spaces. These spaces have, for several years now, defined what writing should be. The books that Orange and Mailhot have produced in independence from such spaces reclaim the Native American narrative, and do so in forms that are different from what is usually expected of writing. Thus, even them writing in the forms that they have, is a form of  resistance against established norms and expectations. 

Their writing has made Orange and Mailhot unforgettable. Being of a race that has been largely rendered invisible, they have carved out a space for themselves, and by extension the modern Native American community. And from my new understanding of it, that representation is itself resistance.

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Author Bio:

Sophia is an online ESL/EFL instructor and a passionate educator. She found her true calling — teaching — while she was juggling writing and a 9-5 desk job. When she is not busy earning a living, she volunteers as a social worker. Her active online presence demonstrates her strong belief in the power of networking. If you want to connect, you can find her on Facebook, Twitter, and her blog Essay Writing and More.

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing