Native American and Chicano a Literature of the American Southwest: Intersections of Indigenous Literatures (Indigenous Peoples and Politics)

164 Pages·2004·1.38 MB·English

by  Chris Hebebrand

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND POLITICS
Edited by
Franke Wilmer
Montana State University
A ROUTLEDGE SERIES
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND POLITICS
FRANKE WILMER, General Editor
INVENTING INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE
Archaeology, Rural Development, and the Raised Field Rehabilitation Project in Bolivia
Lynn Swartley
THE GLOBALIZATION OF CONTENTIOUS POLITICS
The Amazonian Indigenous Rights Movement
Pamela L.Martin
CULTURAL INTERMARRIAGE IN SOUTHERN APPALACHIA
Cherokee Elements in Four Selected Novels by Lee Smith
Katerina Prajnerova
STORIED VOICES IN NATIVE AMERICAN TEXTS
Harry Robinson, Thomas King, James Welch, and Leslie Marmon Silko
Blanca Schorcht
ON THE STREETS AND IN THE STATE HOUSE
American Indian and Hispanic Women and Environmental Policymaking in New Mexico
Diane-Michele Prindeville
CHIEF JOSEPH, YELLOW WOLF, AND THE CREATION OF NEZ PERCE
HISTORY IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
Robert R.McCoy
NATIONAL IDENTITY AND THE CONFLICT AT OKA
Native Belonging and Myths of Postcolonial Nationhood in Canada
Amelia Kalant
NATIVE AMERICAN AND
CHICANO/A LITERATURE OF
THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST
Intersections of Indigenous Literature
Christina M.Hebebrand

ROUTLEDGE
New York & London
Published in 2004 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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Copyright © 2004 Routledge
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the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hebebrand, Christina M., 1969–
Native American and Chicano/a literature of the American Southwest: intersections of indigenous
literatures/Christina M.Hebebrand.
p. cm.—(Indigenous peoples and politics) Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 0-415-94888-6 (hardback:alk. paper)
1. American literature-South western States-History and criticism. 2. American literature-Indian
authors—History and criticism. 3. American literature-Mexican American authors—History and
criticism. 4. Indians of North America—South western States-Intellectual life. 5. Mexican
Americans-Southwestern States-Intellectual life. 6. Authors, American—Homes and haunts-
Southwestern States. 7. Southwestern (States)-Intellectual life. 8. Southwestern (States)-In
literature. 9. Mexican Americans in literature. 10. Indians in literature. I. Title. II. Series.
PS277.H43 2004 810.9′979–dc22 2004000171
Hebebrand, Christina M. Native American and Chicano/a Literature of the American Southwest:
Intersections of Indigenous Literatures.
ISBN 0-203-33026-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN: 0-415-94888-6 (hardback)
Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS VII

INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER ONE Imagined Past, Imagined Future: Recreating History to Write 7

the Future
CHAPTER TWO Sacred Places, Holy Sites: The Connection of Religion and 29

Landscape
CHAPTER Who’s the Other Now? Postcolonial Dialectics and Social 62

THREE Identity
CHAPTER Weaving the Voices: Internarrative Identity 96

FOUR
CONCLUSION 131

NOTES 134
BIBLIOGRAPHY 139
INDEX 145

Acknowledgments
“3 AM.” From the book the last song by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 1975. Reprinted by
permission of the author.
“Remember.” From the book She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 1983,
1987 by Thunder’s Mouth Press. Appears by permission of the publisher, Thunder’s
Mouth Press.
“Transformations.” From the book In Mad Love and War by Joy Harjo. Copyright ©
1990 by Wesleyan University Press. Appears by permission of the publisher, Wesleyan
University Press.
“Invasions.” By Jimmy Santiago Baca, from Black Mesa Poems, copyright © 1989 by
Jimmy Santiago Baca. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
“Knowing the Snow Another Way.” By Jimmy Santiago Baca, from Black Mesa
Poems, copyright © 1989 by Jimmy Santiago Baca. Used by permission of New
Directions Publishing Corporation.

Introduction
This study sets out to demonstrate that the shared history of Chicanos/as and Native
Americans in the Southwest, their spiritual attachment to their homeland, and the diverse
cultural, tribal, and familial influences on their lives, determine their literary characters,
personas, and lyric voices and reflect their struggle to establish a unified bicultural
identity. This identity allows them to persevere in the dominant Euro-American society
as a unique cultural and social group. In mediating between the conflicting elements that
impact their sense of self, indigenous authors of the Southwest can be fruitfully studied as
a coherent group that sets itself apart from their colonizers. Some indigenous authors use
the expression “the people” (sometimes spelled with a capital “p” or italicized) to
designate their group; both Rudolfo Anaya (Chicano) in his novels Bless me, Ultima
(1972), Heart of Aztlán (1976), and Alburquerque1 (1992), and Leslie Marmon Silko
(Laguna Pueblo) in her novel Almanac of the Dead (1991) frequently make use of this
expression to suggest a unity among tribal people of the Southwest. The name
Chicanos/as gave themselves, “La Raza,” and the Navajo word by which tribal members
call themselves, “Diné,” which means “the People” as well, can be seen as further
examples of southwestern indigenous peoples’ belief in the cultural affinity with each
other.
In the 1977 collection of southwestern literary voices, entitled Southwest: A
Contemporary Anthology, the editors Karl and Jane Kopp write, “The Southwest and its
spirit are not defined by state lines, for geography, climate, and the human experience
bound up with them elude such things” (393). This statement is reflected in the various
attempts to define the Southwest geographically, i.e. in the diverging ways of broadly or
narrowly delineating its demarcations. While the editors of Southwest follow the broader
definition approach, including western Arkansas and Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and
southern Colorado, Arizona and southern Utah, as well as southern California, they do
point to the fact that “The center of the Southwest is located in an area of Arizona and
New Mexico that transcends the state boundaries, coincidental with an ancient kingdom
or nation of the Anasazi” (xi). Moreover, the Southwest is a distinct region of the United
States because “The original inhabitants of the Southwest, the Anasazi, and their
descendants, plus other native peoples who journeyed to the New World long before
Cortez or Columbus, have shaped a rich tradition of close involvement with ‘place’” (x).
This sense of place, the feeling of attachment to the homeland, is reflected in the
literary works of contemporary Native American and Chicano/a writers of the Southwest,
and thus is one of several parallels that link these authors with each other. Janice Monk
and Vera Norwood, in their article “Angles of Visions: Enhancing Our Perspectives on
the Southwest” (1987), refer to this connection as well, stating that contemporary Native
American and Chicano/a writers place emphasis on the connection between creative
expression and the land, so that many of their “inspirations, materials, themes, and
processes of creation emanate directly from the land,” and thus allow them to develop
their unique literary voices (40).