Native American (Indian) Lit.

MEET JOSEPH BRUCHAC
Q: What do you suggest teachers look for when selecting Native American literature?
A: Seek out books that depict characters from a well-defined individual native nation-as opposed to generic Indians. I say this because there are popular books that were written without understanding these specific differences. For example, in Annie and the Old One by Miska Miles — which is a story of a little girl dealing with the death of her grandmother — descriptions and illustrations are totally incorrect for the Navajo culture. And no one in any Native American culture would call his or her grandmother "old one." Books like this are insensitive due to ignorance, not through intention –– but it hurts just as much.
(http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/instructor/multicultural.htm#bruchac)


Ok, here is part 2 from the Scholastic website now we can take a look at Native American Lit. Joseph Bruchac is a writer of children's lit and his insights on the subject may be helpful to understanding what we should and should not look for in literature relating to Native Americans. Joseph Bruchac gives the following tips:


Make available books that reveal today's Native American cultures.
Be prepared to talk about the ways in which Native American cultures have influenced world culture.
Talk about values Native American cultures share, such as respect, sharing, and reverence for living things.
Avoid books that suffer from what Joseph Bruchac refers to as "The Dances with Wolves Syndrome" –– books in which all Indians are noble and all white people are bad. Any children's book that builds up one culture at the expense of another ultimately keeps racial tension alive.

I find that everything Mr. Bruchac states, should be common sense except the last statement. The idea that presenting information in and honest light should be first and foremost on any educator's mind. This idea that multicultural equals lying about one's past to show it in the best light is not helpful at all. While I do agree that this should b ethe domain of the history depts, we know that we as Language Arts teachers will be faced with dealing with history as well and we have to be as complete as we can in our depictions of all ethnic groups and nationalities. In this way we can use the multicultural lit. to foster more open discussions in our classrooms.

Most would say that showing only the positive side of Native Americans lives would be better for our youth so that the negative prejudices promulgated by the media and history books will have a counter. But, here I agree with Mr. Bruchac and I say as well that honesty in talking about people in history is a much better practice.