End of Alexie/ Presentations

I am not sure if we are supposed to make 1 or 2 posts for last week because we only read one piece of literature, so I just did on that includes both Alexie and the Presentations.

Alexie did a wonderful job ending his book. In the opening poem he asked us to take a journey with him, and at the end he challenged us to use the knowledge of his journey to effect our own. This book starts in the Western United States and ends in the Eastern United States, therefore including all of the nation. Alexie was not simply writing to a small group of people, but was writing to the nation. I think that the overall goal of his book was to help other cultures, primarily whites, to understand his own culture. Quoting from Cool Runnings "People always afraid of what's different". This book was an attempt by Alexie to bridge a gap between two cultures.

I thought the presentation were fun and learned something from every one. Nice job everybody! I was intrigued by the first presentation and the amount of influence that native medicine has had on our modern medicine. I liked how the 2nd presentation showed the negative health effects that we have had on Native Americans. I would agree that killing millions of people is definitely bad for their health. I enjoyed the last two presentation and how they focused on the art side of Native Americans. Their art is very neat and always enjoy hearing/seeing the colors and rhythmic music.

America's Forgotten Wealth of Knowledge

Brianna and Kasey’s presentation was so interesting! The way they portrayed the Native American approached to health is so much fuller than the way whites tend to portray it. I’ve got to say though, that I can see how whites would have disapproved of their version of health. It makes sense with how scientific whites think. (Also, we were just plain jerks and didn’t want to acknowledge anything good about Native Americans.) Our white culture tends to think very little of emotion; that what’s going on in our heads has nothing to do with the well-being of our bodies. However, because of the great arrogance and pride of whites to other cultures, we have missed out on a wealth of knowledge. If Native Americans knew so much about health that we have yet to fully admit and learn from, how much more, in other areas of knowledge, and from other cultures are we missing out on!? This is a great reason why the true history of our country and the cultures within it should be taught in school. Think of how much healthier and knowledgeable our country could be if it took advantage of the wealth of knowledge all our different cultures hold!

Gone with the Wind

Even if you're someone like me who has never seen the movie or read the book Gone With The Wind, you still know that it is considered one of the greatest movie/books of all time. I would never have guessed that this book was filled with so much racism and obvious white-supremacy. When I read the passage from the book describing African-Americans as "creatures of small intelligence" and "monkeys" who had been "elevated to the seats of the mighty" I was shocked. I can't even imagine describing another human being with such words or even thinking one class so superior to another.

After reading this chapter, a lot of things about the history of race-relations in America came into light. I couldn't believe the things I read about the Democratic party. They labeled themselves "The White-Man's Party" and at rallies turned the song "Yankee Doodle" into possibly the most racist and cruel song I've heard.

Although I knew Thomas Jefferson was a slave-owner I never really took into account the things he was saying and his actions. Does his statement about every person's right to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" mean that black people aren't even people at all? The actions and statements by politicians like Jefferson, Douglas, and even Lincoln involving race and white supremacy should not allow these men to be glorified as they are.

The N-Word

Last week, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Courageous Conversation film series showing of "The N-Word." As the title suggests, the film explores that history of the word and the way it is integrated into our contemporary lifestyle. Through such mediums as music, particularly rap, we see the word used quite often. So should such a blatant use of a word that has such horrendous background be used openly in our modern society? Personally, I would think not. It seems that we have made it an ok thing, but anyone who finds such a term palatable, even if only in certain contexts, fails to recognize the pain and agony that carry the weight of the word.
Anyone who understands the word knows that it came from slavery. As the movie explained, variations of the word were used in the earliest times of African slave trading, until the n-word eventually caught on as the word of choice. These slaves were stolen from their homelands in Africa, packed like toys in a toy box into a boat and sailed overseas where they would be sold for a life of grueling labor and no chance of freedom. Then they might be traded over and over again throughout their lives, taken from whatever sort off family they may have made, over and over as their current owners saw fit. The n-word was created as a demeaning way of addressing them. A way in which they could be classified into a lower class than the white. They were lower than just slaves, they were lower than human. How could such a term be used nonchalantly today?

In Alexie's poem "Capital Punishment" he writes :

"when they kill him, kill
and add another definition of the word

to the dictionary. America fills
it's dictionary. We write down kill and everybody

in the audience shouts out exactly how
they spell it and what it means to them

and all of the answers are taken down
by the pollsters and secretaries"

I wonder what Alexi would say about this topic. Certainly he has encountered words that are pointedly offensively towards Indians. Surely he knows just how hurtful these terms can be. He and Lowen would likely both tell you that it comes from a constant degradation of words and their historical meanings, as well as a cultural misunderstanding. If you look at what Lowen has shown us, in all the ways that out history textbooks make us out to be the righteous, God-ordained nation that is rightfully the owners of the land we now inhabit. Little does it mention the atrocities that took place to give us these things. In the same way, if our history textbooks did a better job at revealing the atrocities that came with the slave trade and the way humans were treated, such as given names as the n-word; more of our country would understand the problem with the word. As of now they simply see it as the cool word that is used by famous rapers and such . The history is so vital to our usage of any word, really.
Upon discussion with my brother on this topic, he proposed to me a situation. He asks me, "What if an a black person were to call you a cracker? would that not be as offensive?" And I told him no, I'd probably laugh to myself, really. For the word cracker has nothing to do with a person, it has just shown up as a slang term lately to distinguish a white person. When I think of the word, all it makes me think of a food. Yet then same cannot be said of the n-word, with as rich a history as it comes. That word brings up the thought of oppression and inferiority and carries the weight of every African American who died in bondage as a lesser being. Nobody died from the term cracker.
So as I would hope that people realize the gravity of such a term, it is clear that it will continue on none the less. The most we can do is refrain from it's usage and make sure those we hear use it really know what they're saying.

Inside Dachau

For me, the most heart wrenching of all Alexie’s poems I have read thus far is Inside Dachau-- a comparison of the tragedy in the German Nazi camps to the slaughter of the Native Americans that occurred in the 19th century. He begins the poem explaining his expectations coming into Dachau-- how he anticipates to “feel simple emotions: emotions, anger, sorrow” (177 line 8). I definitely related to that feeling-- that feeling before traveling abroad, seeing an emotionally charged film, or perhaps an exhibit at a museum. I come in expecting to feel something-- for my heart to break for those who suffered. It’s almost as if I feel guilty if I am not saddened by what I experience. Alexie came to the camp with that feeling of expectation; he realizes later that he did not need to visit Dashau to feel that kind of grief. Alexie realizes that the mass slaughters that occurred in North America are every bit as deserving of recognition as the tragedies in Dachau. To Alexie and many of the other Native Americans living on the reservation, death has become much less of a tragedy, simply because they have become numb to the pain. He states in the fourth section of the poem, “We are the great-grandchildren of Sand Creek and Wounded Knee. We are the vetrans of Indian wars. We are the sons and daughters of the walking dead. We have lost everyone” (122 lines 10-14) So much death has infiltrated the history of the Native American Indian tribes that it is simply a part of life for them. It had, perhaps, not sunk in for Alexie that that was not necessarily the case for other cultures. When millions of Jews were killed in the Holocaust, memorials were built. Germany had the integrity to recognize the terrible tragedy. Victims are memorialized and people today continue to mourn and honor those who lost their lives. Alexie states at the end of section 4, “Our collective grief makes us numb. We are waiting for the construction of our museum” (120 line 8). It never occurred to me that we as a nation had failed to recognize the Native American lives lost through history. The fact that Alexie can look at the atrocity that happened at the concentration camps in Dachau and instead of feeling pain and sorrow think, “Where is our museum?” shows the disconnect in understanding between the European immigrants living in America and the Native Americans. It is more evident than ever how much Eurocentrism is instilled into our history and our culture. Loewen states, “The Indian-white wars that dominated our history from 1622 to 1815 and were of considerable importance until 1890 have mostly disappeared from our memory” (185). There is so much truth in this statement. The wars that happened throughout these decades were not as one-sided as we make them out to be. Many Native Americans lives were lost, not only in the wars but also in the enslavement and mass-murder that was so commonplace in history, yet unsung today. I think it was fair for Loewen to ask the rhetorical question, “Where is the construction of our museum?"

Sasquatch, Science, & History

I was thinking back to when we went through Alexie's "The Sasquatch Poems" in class and the lines that continually stick out to me are "Even now, we like to think science replaced religion / when, in fact, religion became science" (106). This is about how we trust everything science says now instead of trusting everything our religion says, because our religion is our science or vice versa, depending on how you look at it. Either way, it's all about the facts.

There's irony in the truth Alexie presents. On the one hand, we have our science, our experiments, our hard FACTS, but on the other hand we have our colonial mind when it comes to history, which is sort of like the "colonial superstition" Alexie refers to (108). In Lies My Teacher Told Me, Loewen's whole agenda is to strip away the lies of the colonial mind. It seems like such hypocrisy for our society to religiously exact facts and hard evidence from one discipline (science) while blatantly and unashamedly lying about and softening another (history). It seems backwards to me. Isn't science where you're supposed to propose theories to find truth and history where you're supposed to just tell the truth of the past not necessarily the other way around?

I agree with Loewen as he cites the historian, Christopher Vecsey, "We must temper our national pride with critical self-knowledge" (134). I want what Alexie's wants in the final poem of his book, The Summer of Black Widows; I want to "...know finally / somebody will take care of this place / even if just in memory" (139).

Bob's Coney Island

In this final chapter Sherman Alexie wraps up his book with his final thoughts on the history of Native Americans. With the first poem, "Introduction to Western Civilization," someone may see a simple illustration of an old Spanish church. However, the final lines in this poem are filled with some violent imagery of a basket that once "held the skulls of enemy soldiers, and served as a vivid warning against any further attacks against the church." One can't help but wonder who these enemies of the church were. In many cases, it seems anyone who wouldn't accept the church's ways could be considered enemies. Alexie shows the violence of the European Christians who came across and destroyed their way of life.


The poems in this section span all over the world, from Germany, Spain, Chicago, and finally in New York. Not only does this show the universal problems, but it shows the comparison of how different countries confront these problems. Germany honors the many lives lost in the Holocaust with museums and various other tributes, yet America doesn't even acknowledge the genocide of the Native Americans and their culture. We seem more wrapped up in putting people on the moon than feeding our own citizens or making sure people don't live below the poverty line.


In the final poem, "Bob's Coney Island," Alexie admits that all he really wants is to have the land that the Native Americans rightfully owned, though "we know all that we see doesn't really belong to anyone." Alexie makes it clear in this poem that the Native American history is one that shouldn't be merely forgotten.

Resentment

The resentment of Indians throughout the history of America is something that has always been there, however rarely recognized or discussed in any history classes or textbooks. We are simply presented with the facts of what happened, and never think to challenge what may have otherwise happened. Both of these books give refreshing insight into the Indian side, and challenge the American pride felt throughout our history. Particularly in Sherman Alexie's last section of his collection of poems, he gives insight into the destruction of Indian culture and society felt by the Native Americans.

In his poem “Inside Dachau” Alexie talks about his visit to the remains of a German internment camp. In a way, his description as an outsider of the camp is a metaphor for Americans looking back on the relations with Native Americans throughout our history. Especially with the comparison to the “death camps” in America, he seems to compare the actual death camps to the more symbolic ones felt by the native Americans. While both are at different extremes, they both represent the domineering white society and how through their ethnocentric ideals they have brought harm to other cultures. Towards the end of the poem, Alexie brings up the point that history always repeats itself, by questioning who will be the next victims. He seems to have some resentment towards the Holocaust in a way, because of how they received a sufficient amount of recognition for what happened in their history, and how the Indian culture still remains helpless victims of white supremacy. He compares himself to someone of Jewish background, and how Indians are still victims in a way. “I was just a guest in a theatre that will never close”(Alexie 122). Here he seems to feel that the pain of the Indians is still ever present, while that felt by the Jewish has been diminished a great deal more.

How to Remodel the Inside of a Catholic Church

My personal favorite poem in the section Tourists section of How to Remodel the Interior of a Catholic Church. The aspect I find most striking is the blatant statement about hypocrisy in the poem. The Catholic church is supposed to be an institution of love and acceptance. It should therefore be free of judgment and corruption. Yet, the church-- and institution Alexie associates with the white man--seemingly cares more about an agenda than about people. The irony of the poem is that the title suggests he is explaining “how to” remodel the church. In actuality he is suggesting that it never really be transformed. He merely is pointing out the ugliness he sees in the institution. For example, when he says “God loves a circus which loves itself,” (line 5, 85) he is insinuating the self absorbed nature of the Catholic institution. The church loves itself--it’s traditions, it’s rules, it’s architecture and it’s stereotypical attendees-- caring more about them than God. Loewen is merely calling them out for this corruption through the poem.

Loewen tries to convey this same throughout Chapter 4 of Lies My Teacher Told Me. He states that Christians would be offended if Indians simplified the Christian faith the way we have done to the Native Americans. The fact that the Catholic church and the Europeans in general overemphasize the greatness of the church, rather than caring about relationships with Native Americans simply shows the Eurocentric attitude they had coming into America. They believed they were a superior race. With that mindset, even hundreds of years later, information is bound to be innacurate. We skew facts about historical events and ignore the rich and diverse Native American history. We lie and deny the mass genocide that took place against American Indians. We reject the idea, even now, that whites may be acculturating towards Native American traditions. Loewen believes that we should not just be fighting for better treatment for Native Americans, but we should be truly listening to what they have to say.

Catch up Posts 2-5

Ok, I could not post anything on here for a long time cause I deleted the email, so here are my 2nd through 5th posts everybody. Enjoy :)

Post 2 Lowen 31-69/ Alexie 29-46
I found the information that Lowen presented about Christopher Columbus to be very interesting. Most of what he talked about were FACTS in history that I have never even heard of. That both Vikings, Africans, and possibly Asians had landed on the "New World" before Columbus puts a large dagger in his title as the discoverer of a new continent. It shows just how Euro centric these history textbooks have become if they give the first place ribbon to the fourth place finisher who is white.

I agree with Lowen in the humor of modern thinkers to continue to think of Columbus or any other explorers of his day as "Discovering" the Americas. There were already PEOPLE there! The Native Americans should be credited with the discovery of a new continent, and there is really no way to argue against that. Lowen might have made the central statement in the entire book when he wrote "Deep down, our culture encourages us to imagine that we are richer and more powerful because we're smarter" (37). The reason that a white discovered America was because he was so much smarter than all those colored folk that found it before him! So far this has been a major theme in both this book and in The Summer of Black Widows. Alexie may not have said it outright yet, but every Native American knows that there is still a lingering presumption that they are still somehow a "savage" people.

What amazed me most by far about Columbus was his involvement in the slave trade. As America has now turned against this trade and view it as a hideous act, one of our great white pioneers can't possibly be know for being the man who started this act.

Post 3 Lowen 70-92/ Alexie 49-60

In the section of "Sister Fire, Brother Smoke" by Sherman Alexie there is much sorrow and despair. He reverts to the death of his sister in the fire multiple times, and I think that all humans have a distinct fear of being burned to death and it is very hard for someone to cope with losing a friend to fire. Fire does not only kill the life that is within a body, but it also warps and scars the body until it is no longer recognizable. Alexie probably feels like the Native American Nations have been severely burned by the whites who came in and killed their ways of life and left their culture scared almost to the point of unrecognizably.

Lowen also is making this point in his book. He tells us the truth about the first thanksgiving and also about the beginning of the "triumph" of whites over reds. It helps that Lowen paints the picture of how kind and generous the Natives Americans were to the newcomers and how they kept them alive upon their landing. It is a classic case of a baby tiger showing up on your doorstep and you taking it in, not knowing that it will one day be more powerful and kill you. But don't worry it is alright, because we have now changed thanksgiving to fit our needs and reestablish our security in ourselves and history.

Post 4 Lowen 93-113/Alexie 63-74

Lowen makes an interesting point about how modern day whites really have no clue what happened before the "discovery" of the Americas in the 15 and 16 centuries. He points out that experts on the subject tread lightly on the subject also because they are not certain of anything but only have hypothesis, but nothing is for certain. Modern day textbooks however plow the road by telling students exactly how the Natives came to the Americas and exactly why they came.

In reading this I came to the conclusion that modern day high schools dislike students questioning their authority. It is preferred that students simply learn the material and memorize it, rather than question it and find out for themselves. In this system lies that are presented as facts take are pounded into the majority of the population of a country in only 50 years. This is a very effective propaganda strategy.

I loved the poem "The Lover of Maps" by Alexie, it is short but carries a great deal of meaning behind it. He is trying to show that one culture can't define another culture in their own terms. That is like trying to teach someone to speak Spanish but you only teach in English. The quote "She tells me our stories are maps told on a scale larger than can be held by our clumsy hands"(63). You can attempt to define Native Americans with a Euro centric definition, but you can't fully explain or capture the vastness of their cultures.

Post 5 Lowen 113-134/Alexie 77-99

I love the title "Tourists" that Alexie gives this section of his book. It can be taken so many different ways and has a very deep meaning in many senses. I liked the poem "Prayer Animals" particularly in this section. He does a comparison between the modern world and the natural world giving each a five lined stanza. He is very biased toward the natural side and plays it up much higher than the "Weeds bursting through the sidewalks"(84) of the modern world. The ending leaves you thinking and a bit bewildered however. He ends with the line "Will the hunter use the rifle or his teeth?"(84), which does not make very much sense to me considering the rest of the poem.

Lowen makes a marvelous point when he shows how we have used imagery to tell lies and make Native Americans out to be the criminals. He talks about how in Western movies and paintings it is always the Indians who attack the whites, when in reality it was the other way around. Even if the Indians did attack the whites they had every right to, we were on their land. Lowen also makes the case about how the use of maps has helped justify our injustice. By simply drawing a line that says "Colonial Territory", we can then rightfully move the Indians off because they were in fact on our land that we had so rightfully claimed.

He ends the chapter with a statement, which I think is absolutely true, saying that although we told Native Americans to assimilate into our culture, we really wanted nothing less than to push them right off the continent. This is a very troubling statement, and reminds me of the movie scenes where a man asks a stranger if he wants to come inside out of tradition and a matter of course, but in reality he wants the stranger off his land. The problem is, it is not even the mans land in the first place!

"Civilized War"

There is a quote that Loewen uses taken from Jennings’ The Invasion of America that truly encompasses the attitude whites have for Native Americans when looking at history. He says, “Civilized war is the kind we fight against them, whereas savage war is the atrocious kind that they fight against us” (Loewen 115). In what context is war civilized? When, throughout history, has there ever been an instance of violence that can be described as enlightened or cultured? “Civilized war” must be one of the greatest paradoxes ever written. Loewen’s descriptions of the violence used by Europeans against the Natives are not at all of a civilized nature, in fact, the whites seem to have been more brutal than the American Indians were. The story of the English, the Pequots, and the Narragansetts provided a perfect example of this. English soldiers carried out an extermination of the Pequots so heartless that their rival tribe, the Narragensetts, cried out against such violence. Classrooms focus on the struggles and triumphs of the white “settlers” so much that we need to be reminded of how much suffering they inflicted on those who got between them and the dream of new land. Alexie also touches on this idea of civilized versus savage war. In his poem “Prayer Animals”, Alexie contrasts the man-made world with pure nature and confesses a fear of being hunted. The last line says, “My only question: Will the hunter use the rifle or his teeth?” (Alexie 84). Notice that there is no question of an attack, only of what form it will take. Violence against himself and his people has become something that Alexie expects. If contrasting civilized and savage warfare, the rifle would represent the former and teeth the latter. If Loewen had to choose which one he would use to describe the white-Indian wars over the centuries, there is no doubt that he would say the teeth.

American Indians are engaged in a tug-of-war between the need to assimilate to US culture but also wanting to remain faithful to their cultural roots. Loewen states that as American Indians have to commute away from the reservation to get good jobs it becomes "harder to maintain the intangible values that make up the core of Indian cultures" (Loewen 132).

This reminded me of an article that I read while I was doing my Janterm intercultural placement in a inner-city school in San Francisco. The article, "Community Mobilization Project: A Strategic Plan for American Indians in the San Francisco Bay Area" (1), discussed the large American Indian population in San Francisco. Even though there are over 40,000 Indians in the Bay area, they are so dispersed that they become almost invisible to the community. The Bureau of Indian Affairs relocated multitudes of American Indians from the reservations into the city from the 1950's-1970's. The article discussed ways to increase American Indian well-being and create a positive cultural identity. I found out that the school I was at in San Francisco had a 60% American Indian population. However, instead of focusing on Native American culture, the school had a much larger focus on the Japanese students- even though the Japanese population only made up 15% of the school. During a lunch period I asked my master teacher why there was such a focus on Japanese culture and not on the large American Indian culture. She replied that the Japanese families were very proud of their culture and worked hard to share this pride with the community. She then said that the American Indian culture did not seem to have much pride in their heritage and seemed to want to fit into the American norm instead of standing out for being "different".

This difficulty of cultural assimilation is also exposed in Alexie's poem "Things (for an Indian) to Do in New York (City)". He writes "that he must be an Indian/ adopted as a young child by a white family, and now/ confused and desperate, has come to New York City"". Later this man goes back to his white family and they "don't say a word about his new braids/ and they all travel to a powwow together/ slightly embarrassed to find their feet tapping/ along in an imperfect rhythm with the drums". This goes to show that even a child who is raised in a white family will suffer if not exposed to his heritage.

American Indians are growing up and realizing that they have to either fit into the classic American mold or else cling to their culture and stay on the reservation. If only our history would have been different. Or at least, if only our history teachers taught history differently. Teachers need to teach children that all cultures are equally valuable and that to be American Indian, or Japanese American, or African American, or Mexican American, or any other culture is just as worthy as being from European decent.

1. United Indian Nations, I. A. (1996). Community Mobilization Project: A Strategic Plan for American Indians in the San Francisco Bay Area. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Sand Creek, Wounded Knee, & Dachau

As I was reading Alexie's poem "Inside Dachau," I realized that I had run across Sand Creek and Wounded Knee mentioned in Lies My Teacher Told Me, as well. In chapter four of his book, Loewen briefly writes about how he is glad that many textbooks no longer portray Native Americans as "savages" and how many "are careful to admit brutality on both sides" (115). The examples he gives of white brutality is the massacres of Native Americans at Sand Creek and Wounded Knee. Later, Loewen writes about how textbooks misrepresent and minimize the American Indian wars and again mentions the massacre at Wounded Knee. This time he claims the 1890 massacre as the end of the "Indian resistance" and wars (119-120).

Sherman Alexie's poem "Inside Dachau," is about Alexie and his wife, Diane, visiting Dachau, a German concentration camp. I looked it up briefly and found that was Germany's first concentration camp opened in 1933. It is now a memorial and a museum, which Alexie refers to visiting on a cold, winter morning. Alexie compares the Nazi concentration camps to the death camps and massacres of the United States. Those aren't known like the German camps are. He even refers to this in his poem: "Mikael said, 'but what about all the Dachaus / in the United States? What about the death camps / in your country?'"

I also feel like Alexie is comparing how he and Diane lied to their German hosts, Mikael and Veronika, to how the United States covers up the death camps in its history and the Native massacres unlike the highly publicized faults of Germany. He points to this idea again when he says "...What have we come to see / that cannot be seen in other countries? / Every country hides behind a white door." He also mourns that unlike the Jews and others' whose murdered relatives and ancestors have museums and memorials, his own people and other Native tribes in the U.S. don't have those things: "What do we indigenous people want from our country? / We stand over mass graves. Our collective grief makes us numb. / We are waiting for the construction of our museum."

In the last lines of his poem, Alexie broaching a topic that I think coincides with the purpose Loewen had in mind when writing his book when he says "I wonder which people will light fires next / and which people will soon be turned to smoke. / Dachau was so cold I could see my breath. / I have nothing new to say about death." Alexie is talking about how "history repeats itself" as the saying goes, and he's wondering what people will get massacred or tortured to death next and in what country it will happen. Such needless and cruel death is the same wherever it happens even if people see it differently due to its presentation or lack thereof. Loewen wrote his book on the same premise that history repeats itself yet I think it is his belief that knowledge can change that. He think history only repeats itself when it is ignorant and deceitful history that is taught to future generations. If people know about Sand Creek and Wounded Knee like they know about the Nazi concentration camps, maybe things in the future will be different.

Prayer Animals

In the poem "Prayer Animals", it was interesting how Alexie chose to compare the US to a savannah setting. This seemed to serve as a metaphor particularly for the history between the white and Native Americans, especially as he is comparing himself to a gazelle. In the savannah, the gazelle is one of the more targeted animals, often under attack and towards the bottom of the food chain, for the benefit of those higher on the food chain. In the past, Native Americans have been put on a similar level in society, with many instances of losing land, being put into reservations, and targeted by the US on many occasions for their benefit. One particular line of the poem that caught my attention was "I have 355 degree vision.", because that is a somewhat unusual degree measurement, especially in terms of sight. This is implying that there is a small fraction in which he cannot see, that ten degrees that might just make the difference. There is just that small chance that he does not survive. If the "hunter" were to be within that ten degrees in which he cannot see, then his life is lost. The last line of this poem was a bit confusing however, with the question of the hunter using his teeth or his rifle. Overall, this poem seemed to sum up the feelings and history for the Native American perspective in their history with the US.

I found Alexie's "The Powwow at the End of the World" a rather sad and interesting poem. He talks about how he is "told by many of you how I must forgive" and agrees to do so after different impossible events happen and lead to one another. Though he never mentions what he is being asked to pardon, it reminds me of our Loewen reading for this week. Chapter four in Lies My Teacher Told Me is entitled "Red Eyes." One of the main points of this chapter is that "No matter how thoroughly Native Americans acculturated, they could not succeed in white society. Whites would not let them" (129).

I think that Alexie could possibly be saying that many people (whites) are asking the Native Americans to forgive and forget what happened in the past to his ancestors, but he is refusing until "I am dancing with my tribe during the powwow at the end of the world."

My theory was only strengthened when I did a little bit of background research on the Grand Coulee Dam, which is the first of Alexie's proposals: "...I must forgive and so I shall after an Indian woman puts her shoulder to the Grand Coulee Dam and topples it." The Grand Coulee Dam was built on the Columbia River amidst much controversy. In the end, it caused massive flooding, which displaced thousands of people including Native Americans who had been hunting and fishing on their ancestral lands there for countless years. The creation of the dam also prevented the migration of salmon and other fish to their upstream spawning grounds. The dam is the largest electric power-producing dam in the United States, and therefore severely unlikely to be torn down ever.

What Loewen is saying is that we must tell Native American history as it happened, instead of from our ethnocentric white European standpoint. He quotes a historian named Christopher Vecsey who said "We must temper our national pride with critical self-knowledge" (134). He merely wants to restore truth and equality to how history is taught. It is but a small way to right at least a few of the wrongs of the past, as well as prevent future wrongs of a similar kind.

What Alexie is saying is that he will not forgive wrongs that have never been righted, so much so that unless a woman can push over the Grand Coulee Dam and eventually lead to a salmon leaping into the night air to throw a lightning bolt at his own feet (an impossible event), he will not forgive until the world ends and he can happily celebrate with his tribe.

Loewen and Alexie both address issues of feigned or obscured morality in their texts. In chapter four Loewen notes, "...forgetting just who taught the Pilgrims to farm in the first place, our culture and our textbooks still stereotype Native Americans as roaming primitive hunting folk, hence unfortunate victims of progress" (130). Such interpretive manipulation of historical fact preserves a long withstanding heroification and idealization of white European Americans which is nothing short of cultural indoctrination.

Alexie pokes fun at the sardonically empty vessel of white religion in his poem, "How to Remodel the Interior of a Catholic Church." He writes, Half of the original pews should face east while the rest face west./The parishioners will be performers./ God loves a circus which loves itself" (85). Such an ironic depiction of broken church unity, quarrelsome congregation members, and sensationalized clergymen leads the reader to view the tension and hypocrisy present here for exactly what it is. Loewen's abrupt language serves the same purpose in his text. Reading these two authors together has allowed me to explore various often antithetical perspectives in relation to a certain event or happening. The revelations which have arisen as a result of this training have been invaluable.

Cultural imperialism is a term I never heard until earlier this week. In both the poems by Sherman Alexie and the chapter's talking about the European takeover of North America, we can see that cultural imperialism is a huge theme. When European settlers came to this country years ago, they did so with the idea that the only culture that mattered was their own. They had no regard for the lives or culture of the natives of the land. The fact that they actually robbed the graves of native people shows how little respect they had for the people who were the original settlers of this land.

Loewen presents an argument backed with facts and ideas from many different sources. Alexie, however, gives a personal account filled with imagery and wordplay. They both tell the same tale of a culture being turned upside down and really not knowing what to believe in. One of my favorite lines in Alexie's poems was in the sixth section of "Drum as Love, Fear, and Prayer."

"Is God red or white? Do these confused prayers mean we'll live on another reservation in that country called heaven?"

These are powerful questions concerning cultural imperialism. Sherman Alexie tries to grasp the concepts that he and other Indians have been taught but have trouble. It is hard for them to believe in white people's God when all white-people have done to them is oppress them.

Cross-Cultural Clashes

When I hear stories of these cultural clashes, I immediately revert to my knowledge of cross cultural encounters. I ponder what it must have been like for the Europeans landing in Massachusetts. They came in with the mindset to conquer and change rather than to learn and listen. Europeans had been practicing traditions in Europe for hundreds of years, perhaps without knowledge of their origins. Rather than suspending judgment about the American Indians, European settlers came with an attitude of superiority: their lifestyle was the only way. Loewen explains that even white newcomers chose to live an American Indian lifestyle simply because they found their lifestyle so alluring. Rather than embracing these cultural uniquenesses that their people had come to know, Europeans tried to "stop the outflow” (107). They made it a crime for men to wear long hair. They threatened to kill any person who tried to run away to the Indians. Their arrogance had risen to such a level that they could not even accept the fact that other’s may want to live contrarily to their own traditions. The so-called faith of love and acceptance that the Europeans brought to America was just the opposite. When one has an attitude of judgement they have ceased to be willing to learn from any other person. They can only see their faults. Suspending judgment is a choice. Humility is a choice. Love is a choice. The Europeans chose hate.

Christopher Columbus and Santa Claus

Reading through the various 'lies my teacher told me' in Alexie’s book, it has not been the underplaying of important characters in American history that frustrates me the most. Rather, it is the deliberate lies that are tossed around as truth in our educational systems. This became extremely evident from the beginning of the book, but rose in absurdity as the chapters progressed. In the chapter about the first Thanksgiving, the different versions of the stories that these textbook publishers claim as truth are humorous even. I was laughing as I read through the different mentions of the Native population in the Americas. One textbooks states, “There were only 1,000,000 Native Americans.” Another states there were “some nomadic groups scattered about the country.” While a few state that there were actually ten to twelve million Native Americans before the European settlers arrived. Another instance of discrepancy in the Mayflower story is the conditions aboard the ship as some books claim violent storms and others claim calm and easy weather throughout the journey. Some textbooks claim the voyage was originally headed for Virginia while others say it was bound for Cape Cod on purpose all along. Some textbooks say that a storm blew the Pilgrims off course while others claim navigation error. Are they serious? It is almost as if these publishers are writing a children’s book rather than a factual event. Shouldn’t history books value truth to the utmost extent rather than romanticized stories with a happy ending and good moral? How are children supposed to become leaders in the future if the past has all been a lie? You feel so ignorant when you discover the truth about Christopher Columbus, the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. Its like the moment that you find out Santa Claus doesn’t exist or that Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz is actually 30 years old. Everything was so beautiful and simple when you were younger, but at some point young adults need to become truth seekers. Teaching them these lies all the way through high school certainly is not beneficial for anyone. Just like children need to be told the myth, at some point we too need to know the truth.

One poem in "The Summer of Black Widows that particularly caught my attention was Fire as a Verb and Noun. To begin with, the format in itself shows a more complex form for the essay. The sections do not seem to be separated into any sort of exact form or pattern, and the passages are split into different sections ar the poem progresses. Personally, I felt that this added more meaning and definitely dramatized the poem a great deal more, because of the frequent pauses that make the reader notice each section more.

I thought it was especially interesting how he used the reoccurring theme of fire in the poem, and the way he used it to represent the death of his sister and brother-in-law. Because it was the cause of death for the both of them, it was interesting how he chose to use a metaphor that direct in the poem. It almost seemed as a way, for him, as the poem progressed, to come to terms with the reality of the deaths, and to directly deal with his grief towards the situation. Ever passage of the poem contained some form of relative wording about fire, and showed how the different effects in a sense helped him to come to terms with the death.

Learning to change my perspective

After growing up learning from the average American history textbooks and having my teachers tell me the myths of Columbus and Thanksgiving, it is hard to change my perspective. As I read Loewen I know that his data is accurate and that I grew up learning the wrong information but, at the same time, I tend to hold onto my ideas. It is easier to believe that America's past was happy-go-lucky and full of heroic figures. It is hard to realize that what I have always known to be true is actually lies or half-truths. I feel racist for feeling nostalgic for the past that I always knew but I just want to believe that Thanksgiving is a holiday worth celebrating. I don't want to think that my ancestors played a role in ruining other people.

It makes me feel frustrated with my elementary school teachers for not trying to teach us about other cultures and other ways that America was "settled". I remember learning about the American Indians crossing the Bering Strait but the teachers never seemed to tell us in a way that made it seem like they had settled here. Instead, it seemed like they were just passersby who happened to be here when the whites came.

I grew up in a small town that is bordered by reservations. We did not have any American Indians in our school but played against the reservation schools in sports. Quite a few people in my town had that idea that whites were superior to others and held very traditional views about history. Their stereotypical views filtered into the school system and so I remember being afraid of the reservation. Coming to college has really changed my worldview and I am ashamed of my past ideas. Alexie's poetry is also playing a role in changing my mind about the reservations. I feel his experiences as I read the poetry and have gained empathy toward what the Indians are going through. I'm so happy that I have taken multicultural courses at Whitworth that have helped shape me into a more compassionate and open-minded person.

Sherman Alexie

I am beginning to notice a trend in Sherman Alexie's poetry. Besides the basketball, heritage, death, and ghosts themes, I am beginning to see a theme concerning family. Alexie presents us with "Grandmother, Porcupine, Traffic" talking about Big Mom, possibly his grandmother, but that poem is just one in a section entitled "Father and Farther." Several of the poems are about his father or like "Death of the Landlord," Alexie is adamant that "this is not about my father." The next section, "Sister Fire, Brother Smoke" also uses familial terms in the title. He talks about brother, sister, and father in "Elegies," mother and sister in "Fire as Verb and Noun," brother and sister are mentioned again in "Sonnet: Tattoo Tears," and the last poem of the section that bears the same title as the entire section repeatedly mentions a sister dying and seeing his sister in every fire.

I think that this trend not only shows how much family means to Alexie, but I think it is also an attempt to bring the reader in and get him or her emotionally involved. I also believe that the familial names and terms are being applied in places to the people of Alexie's tribe to emphasize those ties and losses in a greater way.

1493

As we continue to read through James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me I am taken back by the amount of information that was kept from those of us who received a public school education. Though Columbus has always been revered as a hero, I have heard stories of his cruelty to the Native Americans. Despite the harshness of his actions, this is something that didn't really surprise me when reading this chapter. However, there were many more pieces to this story that don't make it into the standard education which have a far greater impact than Columbus's exploitation of the native people. The fact that so many other societies contributed to this "discovery of the New World" and we fail to acknowledge them doesn't make sense to me.

I never realized how much of a biased education we received until starting to read this book. We only learn about the European "discovery" of the world, not about the people who already live in these places; not to mention the accounts of people who most likely visited many years before. To look past these highly likely scenarios and only talk of the European history of the world not only limits the knowledge of history given to students, it promotes the idea that the only people who really matter in this world are the white descendants of these European societies.

Like others are saying, there is a need to leave some things- such as Columbus being an extremely cruel person- out of these textbooks. There is no way someone can have pride for their country when their leaders from the past were bad people. Just because they shouldn't teach us things like this doesn't mean they should completely leave other historical events out though. People like the Phoenicians and the Egyptians contributed an immense amount to our history, and it goes practically unnoticed. Once textbooks are able to provide students with a whole truth of our history, it could make it more interesting for them and will make students have a better sense for the history of our world.

Roadkill

While Walking in the back forty, perusing the forests for insights into the sublimity of nature, I came to see a large concrete block on the road with a mangled piece of roadkill on top. My first thoughts upon seeing this now dead co-inhabitant were of repulsion. Why would anybody want to touch that poor being that had now been lying on top of the cement for who-knows-how-long? What diseases and parsites had decided to invade that corpse in the meantime? Why disturb its rotting fate? Then I remembered Sherman Alexie's poem "Grandmother, Porcupine, Traffic", and how Big Mom

"Stopped
Traffic as she stepped in the road
And dragged the porcupine
From the Pavement...
The porcupine
Would always be a porcupine
No matter that its heart had stopped
It sharp quills were more useful than a road."

The respect Big Mom has for nature and animals really dawned on me. What a sad ending to such a noble creature as a porcupine, to be crushed by some cold steel automobile? In one of my other classes we were talking today about an African saying about snakes, that the ones who neglect to say their daily prayers will die before the night. Animals survive in the world by their own account. How much closer are they to nature by default? I really like the communion with nature Big Mom shares, and would like to be that in-tune myself. But alas, I still didn't give that roadkill its deserved respect. Another creature will go unused and under-appreciated,

Totem Sonnets

Of all the poems in Alexie’s book, none confused me more than the Totem Sonnets. I already have little inherent disposition towards understanding poetry. Sherman Alexie’s poems are especially difficult as they require not only a basic understanding of his life and culture, but they also require the reader to dig deeper in interpreting metaphors and seeking out clues in his other poetry. Yet, when we discussed the poetry in class today, I found these sonnets to be perhaps some of my favorite poems of The Summer of the Black Widows. He was able to convey so many deep and beautiful messages through such simplistic arrangement of words. As so many of his poems, the art was not in the language itself but in the ideas he conveyed. This type of poetry requires the reader to be actively engaged in the work, rather than a passive spectator. Each poem keys in to so many truths about the reality that Alexie has seen throughout his life in the mere arrangement of prominent figures and objects. He inferentially discusses the ideas of segregation in America, search for identity, gender roles, culturally roots and injustices he sees on the reservation simply by his arrangement of lists. Even though I thought it wouldn’t be possible upon first reading Alexie’s poetry, I am beginning to understand and appreciate his style. I enjoy that so many of his poems build on one another, even telling one cohesive story from beginning to end. I look forward to seeing how the story ends at the end of the “storm."

"1493: The True Importance of Christopher Columbus" & "Father and Farther"

In Lies My Teacher Told Me, I am becoming more and more amazed at the amount of historical inaccuracy in so many of our nation's textbooks. I had always known that the Phoenicians and Egyptians were very advanced peoples, but your typical high school history class leaves out so much! Even accounting for nationalism and a sense of respect toward our European ancestors, I see no fault with honoring the cultures that inspired people like Prince Henry and Bartolomeu Dias. I understand that Christopher Columbus was not the most ethical and compassionate of people, but his faults make him real, which makes him interesting and easier to relate to. In this respect, I understand and agree with Loewen. Why not make history come alive by telling "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the true, so help me God"?

On the other hand, I also see where Sara is coming from by sympathizing with the textbook creators. They have a hard job and nationalism/patriotism is not a bad thing to inspire in the next generation. I just think that there needs to be a happy medium. The truth should be presented, but inspiring historical characters don't have to be any less inspiring just because they have faults. They were real, sinful people, too, just like us.

Changing topics, in The Summer of Black Widows reading we had for this next class period, I found a very interesting mix of topics and styles. "Father and Farther" is a very different section than "Why We Play Basketball" was. Some poems like "Grandmother, Porcupine, Traffic" and "Death of the Landlord" I really enjoyed, and I think I understood most of them. On the other hand, I will be clueless about "Totem Sonnets" and parts of "Haibun" until we discuss them in class.

What I found most interesting in this section of Alexie's work was the repeated line in the last poem, "Death of the Landlord." The section is titled "Father and Farther," so we know that this section will focus on Alexie's father, and while this is obvious in many of the poems, one would not relate the last poem to his father except for the one, repetitious line: "This is not about my father." That immediately made me begin to hypothesize how the poem really could be about his father. I think that was Alexie's aim with his use of repetition here. I just found it very interesting and challenging.

Lies My Teacher Told Me

Educated in the public school system for all of junior high and high school, I definitely had my share of inadequate social studies courses, especially in my earlier social studies classes before AP and college-credit was an option. I could definitely relate to what we talked about in class and what Loewen discusses in the first chapter of his book. It frustrates me that well-educated teachers gloss over events that might make America look bad to students. It seems that a teacher, especially one who has been well-educated and critically thought about crucial events in world history would at the very least pass on some of that knowledge to his or her students. I remember so many nights staying up late trying to cram in facts about elections and presidencies-- facts that most definitely would not be able to recollect now. How much better could history class have been if it was told as a story-- a culmination of first-hand accounts even that teach cause and effect? Kids could even learn critical thinking skills before they exit the realm of standardized testing and linear thinking.

At the same time, I must empathize for the textbook publishers. It is a complex task to weave together the events of human history and compile them into one cohesive book, taking into account the perspectives and standards of all individuals involved. History textbooks have one purpose: to summarize historical events into a logical sequence that makes sense to the audience. Taking this into consideration, of course American textbooks will have some sort of bias. Loewen neglects to mention that everyone, even he has a biased, or as Andrea mentioned, an "agenda" that they are trying to push. It is natural that Americans want to instill a sense of nationalism in in their youth. Perhaps, Loewen is swinging the pendulum the other direction too far in aiming to change our way of thinking-- even making American history less than it should be. It would be difficult to explain certain historical figures as multi-dimensional figures: Helen Keller as a socialist, Woodrow Wilson as a white supremacist, Thomas Jefferson as a slave owner, without making some of these aspects of their character seem justifiable. Of course, I am not saying that leaving these types of holes in the story is excusable. Ideally, history class would be based on research, analysis and discussions and critical thinking. Yet, as a means to make American history accessible to the massive population of publically educated students, I understand the dilemma.

As children, we learn to accept the truth in which we were presented without question. I only hope that as a nation we can present the history of our nation with truth and integrity, even though so many countries, the US included, have failed to do so. I hope, also that we can push forward as a nation and give minorities a rightful voice in writing the history of our nation.

My first thoughts about Sherman Alexie

Today, as I was reading the poems from "The Summer of the Black Widows", I found myself reading more than was assigned. I think one thing that holds my attention is that his poems allude to settings where I have been. I like that I can picture the places and things that he writes about such as Lookout Mountain, the Spokane falls, and the gondolas at Riverfront Park. I have also watched the movie "Smoke Signals" (everyone should watch it) and I feel connected to Alexie even more because I have seen his work played out in film.

Even though much of Alexie's writing is didactic, one can also find the humor in his lines. After reading some of his poetry I feel as though I am the Indian boy on the reservation who loves basketball. Then I realize that I am the scrawny white girl who is actually horrible at basketball. But I find it amazing that his writing is so captivating that I become a part of the stories. He forces the reader to feel his experiences- leading me to better understand what American Indians have gone through.

Alexie's writing style is easy to follow (for the most part) and usually his meaning is pretty clear. Although I still do not understand "Totem Sonnets" but I am sure I will understand it on Tuesday. My favorite poem so far has been "That Place Where Ghosts of Salmon Jump". I like how he combined Indian legend with real-life history. It shows how much the white man has changed nature. Just like the American Indians used to be free to move, the salmon used to be free in the Spokane river. I would have never thought about dams as bad things before but now I am sure that I will always look at the Spokane falls differently. This is what Alexie does- he changes your mind about things without even giving warning.

EL 128 for Spring 2011

Blog at least twice a week, but not on the same day, and try to separate your entries out 1-2 days so that you're responding to different readings, assignments, class meetings, campus/community events (for extra credit).  When you blog, don't just gush.  Use the terms from the readings, CRT terms, literary terms--but do respond to the class material, discussions, multicultural events you've attended, and your classmates' blogs.  Be analytical when you respond, please.  Don't attack people.  That's mean.