Literature for Adolescents
Wait, America Did What?
Centering Indigenous Stories
This section focuses on the stories of Indigenous people in what is now known as the United States of America. This includes the tribes from the mainland as well as the tribes in what is now known as Alaska and Hawaii. Unfortunately, we will not spend much, if any, time on the indigenous peoples from Central and South America because one unit can only cover so much information. Given the at times violent and often horrific historical treatment of indigenous peoples by the U.S. government, we will be delving into hard and uncomfortable topics. Yet that is why it is important to have this unit, in order to remedy a problem, we first to know that the problem exists. This unit will demonstrate both that indigenous peoples have always resisted oppression, and also that they are still here and still exist. For the edition and year section, if there is only a year present that means the edition was not applicable and/or significant.
Aleutian Sparrow by Karen Hesse
Edition and Year: 2003
GWSS: Histrocial Fiction, Poetry
Themes: Death and Loss, Belonging, Community, Alienation, Identity
Summary: In June 1942, the Japanese Navy invaded Alaska’s Aleutian Islands where the Aleuts have lived and thrived for three thousand years. Within days the Aleuts are evicted, split up, and sent to live in Alaska’s southeastern forests, a completely foreign environment. We join Vera, an Aleut living through this period of turmoil, as she tries to help both herself and her community survive.
Assessment: Students can discuss how place and belonging are intricately tied together. Students can research and discuss what happened to the Aleuts after the book ends. Students can discuss the casualties of war--is the displacement of the Aleuts just another casualty? Is this displacement the only way the war has impacted Vera and her community? They can also discuss how Hesse’s use of poetry made (or did not make) the narrative more poignant. Relatedly they can also debate whether or not Hesse, a White woman, should write about indigenous people’s stories. Is it enough that she researched the topic and culture? When, if at all, can we divorce the author from the art?
Amá (Mother)
Edition and Year: 2018
GWSS: Non-fiction, Film, Documentary
Themes: Gender, Racism, Motherhood, Family, Community v. Individual
Summary: I don’t think that I can explain this movie better than the website does:
“Amá is a feature length documentary which tells an important and untold story: the abuses committed against Native American women by the United States Government during the 1960’s and 70’s: removed from their families and sent to boarding schools, forced relocation away from their traditional lands and involuntary sterilization.”
You can look up more details here (it might be hard to see, but that is a hyper link) and watch the trailer on the left. I would recommend making the video full screen.
Assessment: Students can discuss the rights of a doctor with a patient--should a patient always have a say over what happens to their body? Students can discuss cultural genocide and whether destroying a culture is the same as murdering someone/a group. Students can research the history of eugenics and see the connections between that and the forced sterilization. Moreover, they can look into the Monyiham Report which blames the fact that, at the time, there were many single mother households in the Black American community for Black children's lack of academic success and then connect that to the argument for these forced sterilizations.
Black Hawk: An Autobiography edited by Donald Jackson
Edition and Year: University of Illinois Press, 1955
GWSS: Auto-biography, Non-Fiction
Themes: Race and Racism, Imprisonment, War, Prisoners of War, Death and Loss, Identity
Summary (paraphrased and quoted from the book): Black Hawk was a Sauk warrior who fought hard against American expansion and colonization, but this dissent led to his capture at the end of the Black Hawk War. Black Hawk’s imprisonment by the U.S. government included having him tour the country as a walking, talking, tourist attraction. Once Black Hawk was released to live in the territory that is now Iowa “he dictated his autobiography to a government interpreter, Antoine LeClaire, and the story was put into written form by J. B. Patterson, a young Illinois newspaperman.”
Assessment: Students can connect the consequences of war for Black Hawk and the consequences of war for Vera and her Aleutian community. Students can discuss the ways in which Black Hawk was used as government propaganda. Students can discuss the tragedies that Black Hawk had to face and think about why we are not regularly taught about them (as in about the indigenous community writ large).
Hope Leslie by Catherine Maria Sedgewick
Edition and Year: Penguin Classics, 1827
GWSS: Fiction, Prose
Themes: Race and Racism, Nationality, Love, Friendship, Death and Loss, Family, Community and Identity
Summary (quoted from back cover): “[T]his frontier romance challenges the conventional view of Indians, tackles interracial marriage and cross-cultural friendship, and claims for women their rightful place in history. At the center of the novel are two friends. Hope Leslie, a spirited thinker in a repressive Puritan society. . .[and] Magawisca, the passionate daughter of a Pequot chief.”
Assessment: Students can discuss how, if at all, the summary quoted above contrasts against what actually happens in the novel. Students can discuss how the use of literature forges an American identity at a time when there was not really one to speak of.
“Grace” and “Homecoming” by Darcie Little Badger in Take the Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance edited by Bethany C Morrow
Edition and Year: 2019
GWSS: Fiction, A series of short stories by various authors
Themes: Family, Home, Activism, Identity, Gender, Sexuality, Body and Autonomy
Summary: As a whole, the anthology is a collection of short stories that chronicle the activism that’s easiest to ignore and sometimes the most powerful: the acts of resistance that we enact every day. The two stories highlighted in this section focus on a Lipan Apache girl who dreams of going home to her ancestral lands, and her journey to get there.
Assessment: Students can discuss the importance of consent. Students can connect Grace’s story with Vera’s in The Aleutian Sparrow and discuss the importance of geographical space when considering home. Students can also discuss how that connects the issue with the South Dakota Access Pipeline as well as how painful it probably was to be forced onto reservations and/or into boarding schools. Students can discuss how Grace’s activism is not always directly related to her identity as a Lipan Apache and how, if it surprises the students, sometimes we can inadvertently other someone even when we try to be respectful of their identity.
Lilo and Stitch directed by Chris Sanders Dean DeBlois
Edition and Year: 2002
GWSS: Science-Fiction, Film
Themes: Family, Identity, Belonging, Class, Gender, Death and Loss, Childhood
Summary: Nani and Lilo are two native Hawaiian sisters who lost their parents in a tragic car accident. In an effort to help Lilo, who is five, Nani, who is late teens/early twenties, gets her a dog. However, that “dog” turns out to be an escaped alien science experiment with seemingly no capability of emotions. But what happens when the experiment is shown real love and affection?
Assessment: Students can discuss the impact of death on relationships and on how someone grows up. Students can discuss how Lilo and Nani (and David) all assert their Hawaiian identity and the ways they try to protest tourism and colonialism. Students can discuss the fact that while some of the voice actors and actresses are native Hawaiians, plenty of them are not. Does that matter since most of the characters are aliens? Does the fact that there are few native Hawaiian characters with many speaking lines suggest something about Disney or representation of race in media? (Think of the way Tatiana in The Princess and the Frog is the first Black princess yet she is a frog for most of the movie). Students can also talk about the way their viewing of the movie changed, if at all, based on both their age and the previous curriculum on the history of indigenous folks in the U.S.