10 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
works to dispel stereotypes while acknowledging real problems, and to deepen
understandings between and among cultures of the United States while offering
inventive formal creations and, often, vivid storytelling.
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION AND RESEARCH
- Many contemporary American Indian writers confront the traditional version
of American history in their stories, especially the concept of Manifest Des-
tiny—the belief held by white eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Americans
that the United States and people of Anglo-European heritage were destined
and ordained by God to expand across the North American continent. Often
unexpressed in mainstream histories is the resultant decline in Native Ameri-
can populations, land, and cultures. Historical references in native literary
works may include incidents such as the biological warfare carried out through
the “gift” of smallpox-infected blankets, wars carried out against native tribes,
government policies (for instance, the General Allotment, or Dawes, Act) that
steadily eroded the native land base, and the plethora of treaties never honored
by the U.S. government. Such references can be found especially in the work
of Sherman Alexie, James Welch, Adrian C. Louis, and Simon J. Ortiz and in
Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead (1991) and Gardens in the Dunes
(1999). More specific instances include Silko’s Ceremony and N. Scott Mom-
aday’s House Made of Dawn, which focus on the circumstances of American
Indian soldiers who fought for the United States in World War II but on their
return were met with the same prejudice they had always experienced. Linda
Hogan’s Mean Spirit uncovers the history of ruthless oil speculators who mar-
ried Osage women and discarded them after gaining control of their mineral
rights. Alexie discusses Colonel George Wright’s 1858 massacre of Spokanes
and more than eight hundred of their horses in “A Drug Called Tradition” and
“The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire,” both included in The Lone Ranger and
Tonto Fistf ight in Heaven (1993), as well as in many of his poems. Students can
read any of these authors for their historical references and ask such questions
as: how do the writers revise standard versions of American history by pre-
senting it from a native perspective? What previously “hidden” history do they
help bring to light? How effective are their strategies? Silko’s and Momaday’s
depictions of fictional veterans might be compared to the true stories of the
Iwo Jima veteran Ira Hays or the World War II Navajo code talkers. Peter
Nabokov’s Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations
from Prophecy to the Present, 1492–2000 (1999) would be an invaluable resource
for any of these undertakings: it provides primary resources, as well as useful
overviews of Native American history. Students interested in pre-Columbian
Native American history should consult Charles C. Mann’s 1491: New Revela-
tions of the Americas before Columbus (2005), while those who want to inves-
tigate contemporary history will find Joane Nagel’s American Indian Ethnic
Renewal: Red Power and the Resurgence of Identity and Culture (1996) useful.
The first three essays in Joy Porter and Kenneth M. Roemer’s The Cambridge
Companion to Native American Literature (2005) also offer historical context.