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THE MARGINALIZATION OF ZITKALA-ŠA AND WENDY
ROSE
By
Dina Barajas
_________________________
Copyright © Dina Barajas 2010
A Thesis Submitted to the faculty of the
GRADUATE INTERDISCIPLINARY PROGRAM IN AMERICAN
INDIAN STUDIES
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
In the Graduate College
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
2010
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STATEMENT BY AUTHOR
This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an
advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library
to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library.
Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission,
provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for
extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be
granted by the copyright holder.
SIGNED: Dina Barajas
APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR
This thesis has been approved on the date shown below:
Mary Jo Tippeconnic Fox
Associate Professor of American Indian Studies
May 11, 2010
Date
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank God for giving me the inner-strength that has kept me
motivated and gave me the courage and confidence to accomplish my goals. I would also
like to thank my mom and dad who have been my biggest supporters; my committee
members; my mentors, Dr. Manley Begay and Dr. Roberto Rodriguez, and all of my
friends who have provided me with the extra support and encouragement I needed.
In addition, I would like to thank the University of Nebraska Press for the use of
the poem, “A Ballad”: Reprinted from Dreams and Thunder by Zitkala-Ša by permission
of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright © 2001 by the University of Nebraska
Press, and for the use of the text, Their Own Frontier: Reprinted from “Zitkala-Ša: A
Bridge between Two Worlds” by Franci Washburn in Their Own Frontier: Women
Intellectuals Re-Visioning the American West edited by Shirley A. Lecknie and Nancy J.
Parezo by permission of the University of Nebraska Press; Wendy Rose for her
permission to use the poem, “The Parts of a Poet” and Mrs. Leah Schwartz, widow of the
late Mr. Herman Schwartz, publisher of Strawberry Press, for her permission to use the
poem, “The Parts of a Poet”: first published in 1976 and reprinted in 1981 by Strawberry
Press. THANK YOU!
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DEDICATION
This thesis is dedicated to all those who are marginalized, may your unique
positions and perspectives be sites of strength and empowerment.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………8
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION………………………………………………...9
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………...12
CHAPTER 3: METHODS………………………………………………………...28
CHAPTER 4: BIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………..31
Zitkala-Ša: Dakota World…………………………………………………...32
Zitkala-Ša, the Writer……………………………………………………….39
Zitkala-Ša and the Native American Church…………………………..43
Faithful to her People…………………………………………………….....46
Wendy Rose: Growing up Urban…………………………………………..52
Activism for the American Indian……………………………………......55
American Indian Academic………………………………………………..57
CHAPTER 5: ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS………………………………...65
The Marginalization of Zitkala-Ša: Identity……………………………66
Early Memories of a Harsh Reality……………………………………....66
Yearning for a Place to Belong…………………………………………….67
The Peyote Controversy: A Struggle for Self-determination……......69
Further Attempts to Silence the Red Bird’s Voice………………….....70
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TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued
The Affects of Living within the Margins: Activism…………………71
Zitkala-Ša Outspoken and Independent: A Woman of Principle...72
Reconnecting with Dakota Values……………………………………....73
Advocacy for Native Dignity and Rights: A Voice for her People….74
An Alliance with Agency: Organizations……………………………….75
The Marginalization of Wendy Rose: Intra-racism………………….76
Racially Mixed and Cast Out………………………………………….....78
Reactions from the Pressure of being placed in the Margins: Dulling
the Pain.............................................................................................................79
The Exploitation of the Young Native Writer………………………..80
Ignorance in the Ivory Tower……………………………………………81
Negotiating for her People………………………………………………..82
The Instructor Learns a Lesson in Racism……………………………83
Advocacy through the Written and Spoken Word: Writings……...84
Articles and Interviews……………………………………………………85
Poetry…………………………………………………………………………86
A Union with a Familiar Soul……………………………………………89
Directing the course of Native Knowledge through Professionalism
and Activism………………………………………………………………...90
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TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued
Comparative Analysis Questions and Findings…………..………….91
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION………………………………………………..95
APPENDIX A PERMISSIONS……………………………………………….97
WORKS CITED…………………………………………………………...........100
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ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research is to show how the Native American activists
Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose, two women from different eras, were marginalized and how
these experiences affected their personal and professional lives and activism. It is
important to examine why and how these women were marginalized because of the
scarce amount of research on the topic and on Native American women in general.
Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose are examples of Native American women activists whose
lives and activism have been affected by marginalization, and who have faced adversity,
pushed against the margins and demanded justice for their people.
In order to conduct the research, primary and secondary works by and about these
subjects were examined. The limitation of this study is that the literatures examined are
writings by or about the authors. Interviews were not conducted; therefore the primary
and secondary works were the main sources of analysis.
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this research is to show how the Native American activists
Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose, two women from different eras, were marginalized and how
these experiences affected their personal and professional lives and activism. It is
important to examine why and how these women were marginalized because of the
scarce amount of research on the topic and on Native American women in general.
Marginalization is a direct consequence of colonialism and post-colonialism. In a
lecture on colonialism and post-colonialism provided by Dr. Franci Washburn during her
Fall 2008 course, “American Indian Studies 696F: Post-colonialism and American Indian
Literature,” she maintained that within the process of colonization the colonizers
appropriate a territory, a people and all of the components of that culture and society.
This appropriation is accomplished by the following “tools” utilized by the colonizers:
(1) A Force of Arms, which includes a military invasion and occupation of the colonized
land and people, (2) Missionizing, which involves the imposition of the colonizers
religious beliefs and institutions upon the colonized, and (3) Diseases, which involves the
deliberate transmission of diseases to the colonized in order to annihilate the people.
Washburn asserted that colonization also entails systemic domination, which includes the
imposition of the colonizers religious, political, economic, educational and social
institutions upon the colonized (“Post-colonialism Class Lecture”). In the text, Columbus
and Other Cannibals: The Wétiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism and Terrorism,
scholar Jack D. Forbes claims that colonialism and its outgrowth, post-colonialism, which
enables the exploitation of a territory and its inhabitants, continues in the United States.
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This is evident in the abusive and inhumane treatment of migrant workers, among the
rural and impoverished Afro-American communities in the South, and within Native
American communities such as the Sioux and the Inuit, among others (13). Thus, postcolonialism is the continuance of the initial colonizers systematic and systemic means of
conquest and governance over the colonized. Marginalization is the result of the
oppression, disenfranchisement and discrimination that the colonized people and their
descendants have experienced through the processes of colonialism and post-colonialism.
Marginalization can be defined as the oppression of people based on their differences in
relation to the dominant society or group. Those who are part of the dominant society are
usually people within the upper-middle and upper classes of society who maintain a
fundamental belief system and a national identity that is utilized as a standard in order to
compartmentalize and define the rest of society. Those who do not conform to these
standards or ideals are excluded from the dominant society and are therefore pushed to
the margins. These differences include but are not limited to: race, gender, class, political
and/or sexual orientation. This definition is taken from four authors, Marcia Tucker, bell
hooks and Jordan and Weedon. In the text, Out There: Marginalization and
Contemporary Culture, Tucker asserts that marginalization is a “complex and
disputatious process by means of which certain people and ideas are privileged over
others at any given time [this process creates] problematic binary notions of center and
periphery, inclusion and exclusion, majority and minority, as they operate in artistic and
social practice” (7). In bell hooks’ article, “Marginality as Site of Resistance,” also taken
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from the text, Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Culture, hooks maintains
that marginality is:
also the site of radical possibility, a space of resistance . . . a central
location for the production of a counter hegemonic discourse that is not
just found in words but in the habits of being and the way one lives. . . . It
offers the possibility of radical perspectives from which to see and create,
to imagine alternatives, new worlds. (341)
Finally, Jordan and Weedon state that Black and Third World feminists [or
women of color] claim that racism and colonialism have created oppressive, gender
power relations (Cultural Politics: Class, Gender, Race and the Postmodern World 185186). Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose are women of color who have lived in the margins. Yet
they found ways to resist the tyrannical practices of the dominant White culture by
valuing their Native identity and culture and promoting the rights and well being of
Native People through their written works and their activism.
The limitation of this study is that the literatures examined are writings by or
about the authors. Interviews were not conducted; therefore the primary and secondary
works were the main sources of analysis.
The terms, Native, Native American, Indian, American Indian, Indigenous and
Tribal utilized in this thesis are interchangeable and have the same meaning. Likewise,
the terms, White, Anglo and Anglo American used in this thesis are interchangeable and
have the same meaning.
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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter contains an analysis of marginalization theory and how it affects
minorities on the basis of race, gender, and class. Author Marcia Tucker provides a
provocative statement of marginalization in the forward of the text, Out There:
Marginalization and Contemporary Culture. Tucker asserts, that within the process of
marginalization “through shifts in position, any given group can be ignored, trivialized,
rendered invisible and unheard, perceived as inconsequential, de-authorized, ‘other,’ or
threatening, while others are valorized” (7).
According to Tucker, those who are marginalized are placed in oppressive
positions as a result of an imbalance of power between those of the dominant group who
have power and minority groups that do not have power and are, therefore,
disempowered by the dominant group. In other words, the dominant group possesses the
authority to set forth political and social standards usually without much challenge. On
the other hand, minority groups usually have to struggle to implement the same
standards, if they get implemented at all. Tucker points out that those who experience
marginalization include: “women, people of color, gay men and lesbians, physically
handicapped, and the aged (among others)” (7). In general, Tucker, like many authors,
states that those who are affected by marginalization are subjected to it based on their
race, gender, age and country of origin (7). Many authors, researchers, and scholars agree
on the general reasons why people are subjected to marginalization. However, very few
authors point out how Native American women, in particular, suffer a double blow from
the affects of marginalization as a result of their race and their gender.
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Sneja Gunew’s monograph Framing Marginality: Multicultural Literary Studies
discusses marginalization theory in the context of the marginalization of ‘ethnic minority
writing,’ and of minority cultures within Western societies, namely, the United States,
United Kingdom, Canada and Australia (28). For the purpose of this thesis specific focus
on Gunew’s examination of the marginalization of minority cultures is provided. Gunew
asserts:
Being marginalized cannot be reduced to a struggle between oppressor and
oppressed in which the latter remains utterly passive. In their spatially
conceived representation of exclusionary gestures, margins have always
been ambiguous signs which have served to frame the centre in terms of
indictment as well as approbation. (27)
According to Gunew, marginalization is the process by which the oppressor
dominates and denigrates the oppressed. This is accomplished by the oppressor who
creates a binary between oppressor and oppressed. Within this binary the oppressed
represent all that is inferior. In this sense, the oppressed act as a measure by which the
oppressor is judged, where the shortcomings of the oppressed illuminate the oppressor. If
the condition of the oppressor ever mimics the condition of the oppressed, then the
oppressor is deemed inferior—flawed. This binary does not permit the oppressed to
measure up to the oppressor. Hence, the oppressed remain forever a defective standard by
which the oppressor is perceived as superior or inferior/flawed depending on how closely
they resemble the oppressed at any given time.
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Frantz Fanon’s text, The Wretched of the Earth discusses how colonialism lays a
foundation that creates marginalization. Post-colonialism further enables marginalization.
It is the oppressive tactics of the colonizer that place the colonized in a marginalized
state. Jean-Paul Sarte expresses this process within the preface of Fanon’s text. Sarte
proclaims:
Not so very long ago, the earth numbered two thousand million
inhabitants: five hundred million natives. The former had the Word; the
others had the use of it. . . . In the colonies the truth stood naked, but the
citizens of the mother country preferred it with clothes on: the native had
to love them, something in the way mothers are loved. The European elite
undertook to manufacture a native elite. They picked out promising
adolescents; they branded them, as with a red-hot iron, with principles of
Western culture; they stuffed their mouths full with high sounding
phrases, grand glutinous words that stuck to their teeth. After a short stay
in the mother country they were sent home, Whitewashed. These walking
lies had nothing left to say to their brothers; they only echoed. (7)
Sarte reveals that the colonizer’s successful decimation of Native peoples has
been justified by “the Word,” that is the Word of God. The Natives only had use of this
Word in order to persuade and convert other Natives. Sarte asserts that although the truth
was evident, the colonizers “preferred it with clothes on.” In other words, the colonizers
hid the truth with lies by convincing the colonized that the colonizer’s way of life,
imposed rules, laws, and so on were good for them. Sarte informs us that the Native had
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to love the colonizer as a child loves its mother—a condition that rendered the colonized
completely dependent on the colonizer. In this way, the Natives were easily manipulated,
made into puppets fashioned in the likeness of the colonizer. Throughout this process the
colonized are completely dominated by the colonizer; they are stripped of their aboriginal
culture, becoming foreign to their own kind (7). The colonizers permit the existence of a
token Native in order to show the other Natives how to mimic the colonized culture, yet
this is a tool used to further obliterate the Native culture. The practice of colonization and
post-colonialism creates a marginalized state for the colonized in that the colonized are
placed in a position of inferiority without agency. They are subjected to a condition of
constant oppression and are disempowered in the process.
In the text, “Socioacupunture: Mythic Reversal and the Striptease in Four Scenes”
author Gerald Vizenor contends that within the process of colonization, Tribal cultures
are subjected to what he calls a “reversal striptease” (411). To explain his argument,
Vizenor introduces an explanation of the striptease provided by Roland Barthes in his
text, Mythologies. According to Vizenor:
Roland Barthes shows that the striptease is a contradiction; at the final
moment of nakedness a ‘woman is desexualized’ . . . the spectacle is based
on the ‘pretense of fear, as if eroticism here went no further than a sort of
delicious terror, whose ritual signs have only to be announced to evoke at
once the idea of sex and its conjuration.’ (411)
Vizenor applies Barthes account of the striptease in order to explain his concept
of the “reversal striptease.” Vizenor’s concept of the “reversal striptease” can be applied
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to Tribal cultures. According to Vizenor, the colonizer or dominant culture has a specific
perception of Tribal cultures that satisfies their ideal imaginings of these cultures. The
dominant culture desires a romanticized image of Tribal cultures. They want the image of
the primitive, savage, Tribal culture and any delineation from this image diminishes their
interest, the allure is lost (411-413).
Vizenor provides an example of the “reversal striptease” in his analysis of Edward
Curtis’ photographs of Tribal people. Curtis contrived the images of his subjects to fit a
perception that pleased him as well as the dominant society. According to Vizenor,
Curtis’ pictorial depictions “ are secular reversals of a ritual striptease, frozen faces on a
calendar of arrogant discoveries, a solemn ethnocentric appeal for recognition of his own
insecurities; his retouched emulsion of images are based on the ‘pretense of fear’ (412).
Curtis remained captivated by their exoticism as long as he maintained control over the
images he exposed. Vizenor points out that Curtis would not have been fascinated with
Tribal societies had they been more “civilized.” Vizenor informs us that Curtis, or his
darkroom assistants removed any and all semblances of White society such as, “hats,
labels, suspenders, [and] parasols from photographic prints” (412).
Curtis’ images became “reversals of the striptease” because he did not allow his
subjects to possess any trace of assimilation into White society. To allow his subjects
otherwise would have made him and the dominant society uncomfortable. This
discomfort was the source of Curtis’ fear. Here is where the “reversal striptease” comes
into play. Curtis preferred that his Tribal subjects not be shown in their authentic form,
especially if that form was an assimilated image. He wanted all contemporary props out
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of the picture because the exotic attire and objects satisfied his imagined ideal. Curtis,
and others who shared a similar fantasy with Tribal cultures, objectified them—if not
psychologically possessed—and commodified them. Their images and material culture
became mere entertainment (412-413).
Vizenor’s analysis informs us that Tribal societies are marginalized by the
dominant societies’ sense of entitlement over them, by their practice of transforming
Tribal societies into material objects, in this case by capturing the images of Tribal
people and Tribal life in the form of photographs, coveting these images, then contriving
them to suit the dominant society’s perception of them. The commodification of Tribal
people is an expression of the dominant society’s power and control over them.
Moreover, it is a practice that fosters their marginalization.
Jordan and Weedon’s text, Cultural Politics, discusses how women in general are
marginalized and how women of color are marginalized in particular due to their gender,
race and class within the Western World. The authors assert, “Feminist politics have
always been a response to women’s actual position in society” (177). The author’s affirm
that Black and Third World (women of color) feminists challenge patriarchy and unequal
gendered power relations within their politics. The authors maintain:
Black and third world feminist cultural politics insist on the centrality of
racism and colonialism to understanding gender relations. As such they
emphasize cultural and historical specificity, challenging the Eurocentric
tendency of much feminism to privilege Western norms as universal. They
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call for a recognition of difference which acknowledges and challenges the
oppressive power relations that constitute differences in a racist and
(post-)colonial world. (185-186)
Jordan and Weedon claim that cultural differences and racism are the basis for the
marginalization, other-ing, oppression and subjectivity of Third World women and/or
women of color. Black and Third World feminists resist the effects of cultural difference
and racism by exposing the sources of their oppression, and by positively affirming their
cultural differences. In this way, they empower women of color by promoting social and
political equality.
This text is resourceful in that it displays the connection and oppressive effects of
colonization, post-colonialism and marginalization as experienced by women of color.
However, it refers primarily to Black women when providing examples of how women of
color are affected by marginalization. It is disheartening that Native American women—a
minority whose ancestors are the original inhabitants of the North American Continent—
were not used as the primary example or as a specific example to show the effects of
colonialism, post-colonialism and marginalization. Instead, Black women and Third
World women and/or women of color in general were utilized as a group to show these
effects. Sadly, within Jordan and Weedon’s text Native Americans are marginal even
within marginalization theory.
bell hooks’ text, “Marginality as Site of Resistance” maintains that marginality
can be a source of motivation for the marginalized that leads to empowerment. hooks
focuses both on her personal experience of being marginalized as well as Black
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Americans’ experience in order to express how the marginalized grapple with and resist
their oppression in order to overcome their oppressive condition. hooks broadens her
inclusion of marginalized peoples by stating that the marginalized need to “move in
solidarity to erase the category of colonized/colonizer” (343).
hooks contends that remaining within the margins provides counter perspectives,
which enables one to envision and invent alternative conditions. She explains this
concept by sharing the advice her mother had given her before she left her community in
order to attend college. hooks’ mother proclaimed, ‘You can take what the white people
have to offer but you do not have to love them’ (342). hooks asserts that her mother was
informing her that she did not have to lose herself to the oppressors in order to attain an
education or to achieve academic and social success. hooks affirms that her mother was
reminding her “of the necessity of opposition and . . . not to lose that radical perspective
shaped and formed by marginality” (342).
Although hooks primarily focuses on Black people, she also includes all
colonized people as people who are marginalized. She asserts, “Understanding
marginality as position and place of resistance is crucial for oppressed, exploited,
colonized people” (342). Yet she does not specifically mention other colonized groups
such as Native Americans. Again, an analysis of the marginalization of Native peoples is
crucial because they were the original inhabitants of the Americas. They were subjected
to marginalization within their own land prior to any other people of color who arrived in
the Americas either by force or voluntarily.
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In Feminist Theory: From Margins to Center, hooks provides personal testimony
of the effects of marginalization on the Black community and how living in the margins
can be a site of strength, motivation and personal and social progression. hooks explains:
To be in the margin is to be part of the whole but outside the main
body. As black Americans living in a small Kentucky town, the railroad
tracks were a reminder of our marginality. Across those tracks were paved
streets, stores we could not enter, restaurants we could not eat in, and
people we could not look directly in the face. Across those tracks was a
world we could work in as maids, as janitors, as prostitutes, as long as it
was a service capacity. We could enter that world but we could not live
there. We had always to return to the margin, to cross the tracks, to shacks
and abandoned houses on the edge of town.
There were laws to ensure our return. To not return was to risk being
punished. Living as we did—on the edge—we developed a particular way
of seeing reality. We looked both from the outside in and and [sic] from
the inside out. We focused our attention on the center as well as on the
margin . . . This mode of seeing reminded us of the existence of a whole
universe, a main body made up of both margin and center. Our survival
depended on an ongoing public awareness of the separation between
margin and center and an ongoing private acknowledgment that we were a
necessary, vital part of that whole. (ix)
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Her recollection informs us that the Blacks in her community were the oppressed,
the marginalized who were segregated from the greater society. The oppressed could
enter the oppressor’s world only to provide a service, but they were not allowed to reside
there. They could only inhabit the parameters that the Whites permitted. hooks asserts,
“This sense of wholeness, impressed upon our consciousness . . . provided us an
oppositional world view—a mode of seeing unknown to most of our oppressors, that
sustained us, aided us in our struggle to transcend poverty and despair, strengthened our
sense of self and our solidarity” (ix). hooks is a living example of a woman of color who
overcame adversity by attaining an education in the colonizer’s institution while
maintaining oppositional and radical political perspectives, and remaining who she is in a
site of resistance.
The article, “The Puyallup Tribe Rose from the Ashes” provides Ramona
Bennett’s personal testimony of her experience being a Native woman marginalized
within her homeland. Bennett was about fifty years old when she provided her testimony.
During the 1970s, she served as the Chairwoman of her tribe, the Puyallup. Since Bennet
has maintained a close social and political relationship with her tribe, she was able to
divulge past examples of the Puyallup’s experience of marginalization through the
historic injustices they endured by White settlers and the U.S. government. One of the
means which enabled Puyallups to be subjected to marginalization, was the U.S.
government’s breach in the terms of the 1854 Treaty of Medicine Creek, which originally
assigned the tribe land on Puget Sound. During the allotment era this provision was
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completely disregarded. Bennett describes the injustice experienced by her tribe during
that time:
The [Whites assigned] us guardians because we couldn’t read, write or
speak English. They treated us like children. The guardians, mostly
crooked lawyers and businessmen who had full authority would ask for
permission to sell our land. There was a correspondence that said, ‘I have
sold this Indian’s land. I went out to give him the money and he refused it,
saying, ‘My land is not for sale.’ Now what do I do?’ And the
government’s response was, ‘Well, the reason he was assigned the
guardian was because he’s not competent to manage his own affairs. Keep
the money for probate fees, and get the sheriff to remove him.’
So these Indians were taken off the allotments at gunpoint. (151)
According to Bennett, her tribe, like many others, did not have support from the
local authorities nor the political support from the U.S. government to secure their well
being or their land. In fact, Bennett asserts that “the U.S. government wouldn’t come
forward to protect the tribe or individual, and the sheriff had the gun” (151). This
atmosphere of injustice enabled the tribe to be marginalized. They were marginalized in
the sense that without political or legal support, the tribe had no authoritive voice or
defense against the dispossession of their land and their own displacement and
disenfranchisement.
Bennett’s testimony shows how the practice of colonization is connected to the
process and effects of marginalization on Native people. Practices such as the illegal
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seizure of the Pullyap tribe’s land is an example of how the U.S. government and its
legal system oppressed the Pullyap to the point that they were systemically made
defenseless.
Leslie Marmon Silko’s text, “Books: Notes on Mixtec and Maya Screenfolds,
Picture Books of Preconquest Mexico,” discusses tactics of the colonizer which
dehuminize the colonized people and, therefore, enables the colonizer to subject the
colonized to various injustices which have been mentioned thus far i.e., the dispossession
of their land and physical and psychological abuse. The colonized people of the Americas
were marginilized by colonialism, ethnocentrism and racism. The Natives were
marginalized because they were seen as uncivilized, second class citizens who were not
worthy of being anything but a labor force for the civilized White colonizing society.
As noted, colonization establishes a social environment that creates a hierarchy
between the colonizer and the colonized in which the colonizer is the superior, dominant
group and the colonized is the inferior, dominated group. This environment manifests a
cycle of oppression that is directly connected to, and condones, the marginalization of the
dominated group. The colonizer succeeds at dominating the colonized by systematically
dismantling their very existance. One way this was accomplished was by the U.S.
government’s policy and procedure of forcing Native children to attend boarding schools
located far away from their families, such as the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania.
This tactic severed the Native American family unit and the Tribal community and
diminished their spirits. According to Silko, the U.S. government did not permit the
Carlisle Native students to visit their families during the summer. Instead they were hired
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as domestic servants and farmhands to Carlisle families. Silko contends that the
government policymakers believed that if they prohibited the Native students from seeing
their families and homeland long enough, the Native graduates might never return to their
reservation but instead assimilate into the White American society in the East and
continue working as domestic servants and farmhands (161-162).
Silko addresses the connections and processes of colonization, oppression, racism
and marginalization and how colonization lays the foundation for all of these injustices to
arise and thrive; that creates a system of inequal power dynamics between the colonized,
and colonizer, minority groups and majority groups. Although Silko specifically focuses
on the people of the Americas in order to show how the above connections work together
to marginalize a people, she expands her scope to include those who are marginalized by
informing us that marginalization occurs anywhere colonization has.
In the process of colonization, many aspects of Native culture are oppressed. The
text, “Bring Us Back into the Dance: Women of the Wasase,” by Kahente Horn-Miller
provides a personal testimony of a Kanienkehaka or Mohawk woman’s story of how her
people re-introduced a War Dance known as the Wasase into their Tribal community in
order to restore the tribe’s spirit after one of their youth attempted to committ suicide.
Horn-Miller’s story reveals more than the Kanienkehaka’s recovery after this single
tragedy, her story expresses the tribe’s determination to combat the social ills that
plagued the entire Kahnawake community. Horn-Miller asserts that the attempted suicide
of a local thirteen-year-old girl “woke up many people in the community” (232) and
forced them to examine the origin of the communities wounds that began with
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colonization, and subjected the Kanienkehaka to abuse and marginalization for
generations.
As Horn-Miller reflected on the history of her tribe’s experience with
colonization, she began to examine the origins of the Kanienkehaka’s dis-ease. HornMiller informs us that prior to contact, the Kanienkehaka people were a part of a larger
confederation of tribes known as the Haudenosaunee, which included the Kanienkehaka,
Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca nations (240). The Haudenosaunee are a people
who originally lived by the Longhouse tradition in which a number of family members
co-habitated in a communal style residence. Horn-Miller asserts that Kanienkehaka’s
traditional way of life was distrupted by the U.S. government’s interference. Horn-Miller
asserts:
[Our reserve is] constrained by the typical limitations that frustrate the
existence of every reserve. Our traditonal life was governed by two very
important principles: sharing and reciprocity. With these tenets severly
limited by government interference over the years, we have lost much of
our communal way of life, the Longhouse is the center of our traditional
ceremonies. Many older people have returned to the Longhouse after
experiencing a lifetime cut off from Kanienkehaka ways, for when they
were young, it was illegal to continue the traditions of our ancestors.
Through education and church indoctrination, through all the negative
stereotypes and asssumptions evident in Hollywood films and popular
music, they were forced into another way of relating to the world. My
26
people were not allowed to speak Kanienkehaka language, to have
Kanienkehaka names or to practice Kanienkehaka belifes, including our
songs and our ceremonies. (240-241)
According to Horn-Miller, the legal authorities would arrest anyone who
practiced Longhouse traditions. Horn-Miller’s testimony reveals the type of inter-cultural
racism and oppression that reflects the conditions experienced by a group of people who
are being marginalized by another group—the severe abuse which the colonizer subjects
them, and the sense of fear and shame that the colonizers instill in them—to the point that
most of the Kanienkehaka rejected any practice of their cultural traditions because they
were afraid that they would be imprisoned. The mother of the girl who attempted suicide
informed Horn-Miller that this fear and rejection of traditional Kanienkehaka ways
remains today.
The author’s narrative reveals that the oppression, abuse and marginalization that
the Kanienkehaka experienced caused a cyclical emotional and psychological
generational trauma that began in the past and persists in the present. Therefore, the
Kanienkehaka had to begin to focus on the needs of their youth in order to stop the cycle
of trauma from continuing. Horn-Miller asserts that it was essential for the Kanienkehaka
tribe to conduct the wasase dance in order to lift their spirits. She explains that wasase is
a Kanienkehaka word that means renewal (237). Horn-Miller affirms that Kanienkehaka
ceremonies, such as wasase, “create a sense of openness and unity, and with unity comes
empowerment, which is necessary not only in times of war but also in everyday life”
(244). Horn-Miller reveals that although Native peoples can not erase the pain and abuse
27
that accompanied the colonization and marginalization they suffured in the past, they can
heal their wounds in the present by supporting each other to recover from their
generational trauma and learn to live by healing what they can today.
Finally, literature by Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose, such as “The School Days of an
Indian Girl,” “An Indian Teacher Among Indians,” “Hope in the Returned Indian
Soldier,” “Neon Scars,” The Halfbreed Chronicles and Other Poems, and “Just What’s
All This Fuss About Whiteshamanism Anyway?” disscuss various ways in which they
and other Native and non-Native people are marginalized, discrimated, disenfranchised,
and silenced by the dominant culture. These writings are discussed in greater detail in the
Biography and Analysis section of this thesis.
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CHAPTER 3: METHODS
This study is the result of an interest in strong female Native American figures
who face adversity and challenge it head on, women who are advocates for their people,
women who strive to make a difference and do. This research explores the affects of a
social injustice that affects many people of color—marginalization. Marginalization has a
particular effect on the lives of minority women such as Native American women in that
they are marginalized in two major ways, (1) on the basis of their gender and (2) on the
basis of their race. As a result, they experience various forms of gender and racial
discrimination. Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose are examples of Native American women
activists whose lives and activism have been affected by marginalization, and who have
faced adversity, pushed against the margins and demanded justice for their people. These
two women were chosen for several reasons: the tenacity and courage of Zitkala-Ša, a
Yankton Dakota Sioux woman who was a pioneer for Native activism during the late 19th
century to the early 20th century and the only Native American woman during that time
who advocated for Native rights on a national level. Zitkala-Ša stood firm on her political
positions and was never afraid to express her bold and radical views. Wendy Rose was
selected because she is Hopi, and because she is a 21st century contemporary
anthropologist and author who conveys her views through her poetry, her political
perspectives and activism for Native land and repatriation. Rose, like Zitkala-Ša, has
often expressed her views in an audacious, progressive, and unapologetic manner.
Finally, these specific women were chosen because they are historical and contemporary
figures whose experiences of marginalization can be analyzed and compared.
29
Marginalization Theory is utilized in order to explain the conditions in which
Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose grew up. Within marginalization, a number of conditions and
injustices co- exist and are inter-connected. In regard to the conditions in which ZitkalaŠa and Wendy Rose grew up, their environment contained elements of colonialism which
gave rise to post-colonialism and created marginalization that enabled discrimination,
oppression, sexism and racism—subcomponents of marginalization (Please note that any
mention of marginalization hereafter may include some or all of the subcomponents of
it). Two research questions were applied in order to assess the ways in which
marginalization and all of its sub-components affected their lives. Three comparative
analysis questions were utilized in order to examine the similarities and differences in the
ways that they experienced marginalization and how it impacted their personal and
professional lives and activism. The research questions were:
1. How were Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose marginalized?
2. How did their experiences with marginalization affect their personal and
professional lives and activism?
The comparative analysis questions included:
1. In what ways are Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose similar and different ethnically?
2. How were Zitkala-Ša’s and Wendy Rose’s experiences with marginalization
similar and different?
3. What were the similarities and differences in the way marginalization impacted
their personal and professional lives and activism?
30
In order to answer the research questions, a literary analysis of primary and
secondary works by and about these subjects were examined. Such works were readily
available from various scholars. The following list includes the literature surveyed, which
provided information regarding the life and activism of Zitkala-Ša: Davidson and Norris’,
edited text of Zitkala-Ša’s writings, American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other
Writings; Beverly G. Six’s “Zitkala-Ša (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin) (1876-1938);”
Debora Welch’s “Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala-Ša): Dakota; “Hope In The
Returned Indian Soldier” by Zitkala-Ša, and “A Bridge between Two Worlds” by Franci
Washburn. A list of the works examined on the life and activism of Wendy Rose include:
“A MELUS Interview: Wendy Rose” by Carol Hunter; “These Bones are Alive: An
Interview with Wendy Rose” by Joseph Bruchac. I also reviewed the following articles,
books and poetry by Wendy Rose: “American Indian Poets and Publishing;” “Neon
Scars;” Hopi Road Runner Dancing; Academic Squaw: Reports to the World from the
Ivory Tower; The Halfbreed Chronicles and Other Poems; and “Builder Kachina: Going
Home.” This list of works includes only a selection of the literary works reviewed. For a
complete list please see the works cited.
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CHAPTER 4: BIOGRAPHY
The similarities and differences between Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose over their
lifespans—childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age and through the later
stages of their lives were examined in each literary work. Each phase of their lives,
including the familial, community and greater social circumstances at the time, and the
influences of these dynamics were analyzed. An assessment was conducted, which
determined if they had lived or were living during a time of colonialism or postcolonialism and what, if any, impact this had on their lives, to conclude if they had been
marginalized, how they had been marginalized and the impact it had, if any. To ascertain
if their beliefs had a connection with their past and present experiences of
marginalization their personal and political beliefs were examined. An analysis of
Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Roses’ choices in personal and professional relationships was
conducted in order to verify if their choices were influenced by past and present
experiences of marginalization. Finally, by focusing on the types of activism they
advocated and its connection with the experience of marginalization an assessment of the
influences marginalization had were provided. The purpose of this research is to examine
their experiences with marginalization, the commonalities of their experiences with
marginalization, and how their experiences with marginalization influenced their
advocacy for the legal and cultural rights of Native Americans.
32
Zitkala-Ša
Dakota World
Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, or Zitkala-Ša (Red Bird) was born on February 22,
1876 on the Yankton Dakota (Sioux) Reservation in South Dakota to a Yankton Sioux
mother, Ellen Simmons, and an Anglo Father, who is known only as Felkner. ZitkalaŠa’s parent’s marriage ended before Zitkala-Ša’s birth. Ellen forced Felkner to leave the
home because she could no longer withstand his emotional and physical abusiveness
toward his stepson, David (Dawee). As a result, Ellen gave Zitkala-Ša the surname,
Simmons, Ellen’s second husband’s last name (Speroff 206).
Zitkala-Ša was born during a time when the U.S. and the Sioux were experiencing
conflict over land. The United States had begun to encroach upon Sioux land. The
government’s actions had been stimulated a few years before Zitkala-Ša’s birth when
they began a systemic violation of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, which stipulated that
the Natives were given full control over the Sioux Reservation, including present day
North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. But, with the discovery of gold in
1873, the U.S. government became increasingly interested in this land (Davidson and
Norris xi). The government’s greed resulted in various battles fought between the Whites
and the Sioux, such as the Battle of Little Big Horn that caused the seizure of Sioux land
and the deaths of many Sioux and non-Sioux, including Zitkala-Ša’s father (Washburn
274-275). Injustices such as these made Zitkala-Ša’s mother despise White people. As a
child, Zitkala-Ša witnessed her mother’s intense resentment. The government’s disloyalty
toward the Natives regarding the treaties had made such an impact on her young life that,
33
as an adult, she challenged the government in various writings and editorials about this
injustice and advocated for Natives rights to their ancestral land.
Zitkala-Ša expressed in her writings that she had a pleasant early childhood,
despite the tensions between the mixed community of Yankton people and non-Native
people (Washburn 276). In Zitkala-Ša’s text, “Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” she
wrote:
I was a wild child of seven. Loosely clad in a slip of brown buckskin, and
light-footed with a pair of soft moccasins on my feet, I was as free as the
wind that blew my hair, and no less spirited than a bounding deer. These
were my mother’s pride, —my wild freedom and overflowing spirits. She
taught me no fear save that of intruding myself upon others. (68)
It is apparent that Zitkala-Ša recalled this time of her life with a sense of pride and
joy.
In 1884, Quaker missionaries came to the reservation to convince Sioux families
to allow their children to attend boarding school in the East. The missionaries
successfully disillusioned Zitkala-Ša by tempting her with the promise of bright red
apples and enchanted Eastern lands. Zitkala-Ša had already been informed of the idea of
attending boarding school from the children in her community. Her brother, David, had
attended an Eastern boarding school. Since many Native children actually experienced
intense cultural differences and cruelty within the boarding schools, it appears that the
stories they told her were skewed. It is likely that her brother, as well as the other
children, did not want to express the cruelty they endured (Washburn 276). In the text,
34
“Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” Zitkala-Ša describes how one of her playmates,
Judéwin informed her of the plentiful red apple orchards of the East. The missionaries
further heightened her curiosity of the red apples by telling her that she would be able to
“ride on the iron horse” if she went with them to the Eastern school (84-85). Zitkala-Ša
also informs the reader that her mother was reluctant to let her go to boarding school (8385). Ellen was aware of the harsh experience her son David had, which further added to
the mistrust and disdain she felt toward White society (Washburn 277). However, Ellen
was persuaded to permit her daughter to go after Zitkala-Ša’s aunt urged her to allow
Zitkala-Ša to ‘try it’ (“Impressions of an Indian Childhood” 85).
The reality for Zitkala-Ša while at the White’s Manual Labor Institute in Wabash,
Indiana was similar to that of other Native children: dismal. Zitkala-Ša describes her
initial experience in her text, “The School Days of an Indian Girl.” She laments how the
children’s clothing was confiscated in exchange for customary boarding school clothing
and their hair was cut short (90-91). According to Zitkala-Ša’s recollection, it was the
cutting of her hair that was most traumatic for her. She asserted, that in the Dakota
culture, “cowards” were castigated by having their hair shingled (90). In regards to this
humiliation, Zitkala-Ša expressed:
Then I lost my spirit. Since the day I was taken from my mother, I had
suffered extreme indignities. . . . And now my long hair was shingled like
a coward’s! In my anguish I moaned for my mother, but no one came to
comfort me. Not a soul reasoned quietly with me, as my mother used to
do; for now I was only one of many little animals driven by a herder. (91)
35
In addition, the children were subjected to a military style regimen, which
included conforming to ringing bells to signify the transition from one activity to another
and marching in single file lines. Furthermore, they were forbidden to practice their
Native religions and speak their Native languages; instead they were expected to convert
to Christianity and immediately learn English (“Impressions of an Indian Childhood” 8995).
After her first year of boarding school, Zitkala-Ša returned home for three years
and felt alienated among her own people. This was due to the harshly indoctrinated
education and religious practices she endured at school. These practices conflicted with
the values, beliefs and practices of the Yankton people. Since Zitkala-Ša’s mother could
not identify with her daughter’s internal anguish she was incapable of giving her the
comfort she so desperately needed (Washburn 278).
After those few trying years at home, Zitkala-Ša decided to return to the
educational institutions in the East. From 1889-1890 she attended Santee Technical
School in Nebraska, then she returned to White’s and continued her studies until 1895
(Davidson and Norris xvi). In order to adjust to the stern environment of these boarding
schools, Zitkala-Ša excelled in whatever subject and task she undertook. After each
session ended, she would return home in hopes of being comforted by her family and
people. However, they could not identify with her because of the Western influences and
perspectives she had acquired from White society, which they were not accustomed to.
As a result, her hopes never became a reality. For the duration of her adolescence,
Zitkala-Ša continued in this cycle of disappointment.
36
Zitkala-Ša enrolled in Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, which she attended
from 1895-1897, after completing her education at White’s boarding school. Zitkala-Ša
was an exceptional scholar. According to Cathy N. Davidson and Ada Norris, P. Jane
Hafen and Beverly Six, she published writings such as, “A Ballad,” and her speech, “Side
by Side” in the school newspaper, The Earlhamite. Zitkala-Ša won second place for this
speech in an 1896 state oratorical contest despite facing a [crude] banner bearing an
Indian caricature labeled, ‘Squaw’ (xvi, 222, 267; 107-112; 383). However, she was
unable to complete her course of study as a result of ill health that was brought on by the
turmoil of her early years. Zitkala-Ša returned to her mother’s home and was dismayed
once again by the absence of comfort and peace she longed for from her people but never
received (Washburn 278-279).
The influences that molded Zitkala-Ša into the intelligent and determined young
woman she had become were a combination of life events and experiences she witnessed
and endured. Some of these life events and experiences included identity conflict that
resulted from the culture shock of living in two worlds—the world of her Native culture,
where she once felt a sense of comfort and freedom in the protecting arms of her mother,
and that of the American culture where she experienced harsh and humiliating treatment
from boarding school professionals. Her essay, “Side by Side,” expresses some of the
injustices the Whites had inflicted upon the Indians which particularly enraged her. In
this selection, Zitkala-Ša writes of the Indians response to broken treaties, “the Red man.
. . . [N]ever was he the first to break a treaty or known to betray a friend whom he had
eaten salt” (223). She also speaks of the White men’s brutal force of arms used to drive
37
the Natives off their lands, displacing them physically and spiritually: “The White Man’s
bullet decimates his tribes and drives him from his home. . . . He loved the fair land of
which he was rightful owner. He loved the inheritance of his fathers, their traditions, their
graves; he held them a priceless legacy to be sacredly kept” (224). Zitkala-Ša reminds the
American people that it is by their government’s own rhetoric that their country offers
equal opportunities to all, that ‘all men are born free and equal,’ and that America “has
preserved to its citizens this birthright of freedom and equality” (226). She then asks, on
behalf of her Native people, “can you as consistent Americans deny equal opportunities
with yourselves to an American people in their struggle to rise from ignorance and
degradation?” (226). Zitkala-Ša wanted to remind mainstream Americans that their
government often proclaimed that the U.S. is a civil, just and free nation. By asking this
question, she urged them to question if, in fact, their government could stand by what
they proclaim to be if it did not help all Americans, including the Native Americans, rise
from poverty.
In the text, Dreams and Thunder: Stories, Poems and The Sundance Opera, which
includes a compilation of Zitkala-Ša’s writings, editor, P. Jane Hafen, informs us that
Zitkala-Ša’s poem, “A Ballad,” expresses a love story between Winona and Osseolo.
Winona is a common Sioux female name which means firstborn in Dakota. Osseolo
refers to the Seminole resistance leader, Osceola who lived between 1804-1838 (107).
Their romantic love is displayed in the following verses:
Did you not hear the moody owl
In mournful hoots of foreboding ill [. . . .]
38
A crouching, wounded form passed on
To death [. . . .]
Recovered life brought with it hope [. . . .]
Winona is no more alone,
And now a joy all grief dispels.
New life for her begins to flow,
Her heart grows warm and eyes grow bright.
A wilted flower revived can grow! [. . . .] (lines 45-176)
Winona warns her lover of a bad omen represented as a hooting “owl.” Zitkala-Ša
uses the owl to represent Osseolo’s ill fate at the hands of a disloyal Native or “traitor”
(109). Osseolo, described as a “wounded form” is harmed in a battle against the “traitor”
and is near death, but he recovers from his wound and survives, bringing joy or “New
life” to Winona. Themes expressed in this literary piece and others were the influences
which continued to inspire her life’s work. Zitkala-Ša would speak of these, as well as
other themes that discussed the value of Native religious perspectives and the
disenfranchisement of Native people in later works such as, “Why I Am A Pagan,”
“Hope In The Returned Indian Soldier” and “Lost Treaties of the California Indians.”
In 1897, Colonel Richard Henry Pratt, head of Carlisle Indian School in
Pennsylvania, offered Zitkala-Ša a teaching position at the institution. The text, “An
Indian Teacher Among Indians,” by Zitkala-Ša and “Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, 18761938: ‘Americanize the First Americans’” by scholars David L. Johnson and Raymond
Wilson confirm that she accepted his offer, but soon became distraught by the
39
incompetence and unconcerned, self-absorbed attitudes of Pratt, her colleagues and the
Carlisle staff (104-105, 111-113; 28). According to Deborah Welch, during this time
Zitkala-Ša was invited by a Washington literary organization to give a recitation and
violin concert at a meeting that President McKinley would be attending (38). This event
marked the beginning of Zitkala-Ša’s realization of the impact her public presence could
make toward her advocacy for Native people.
Disallusioned by the harsh Western assimilation policies administered at Carlisle,
Zitkala-Ša resigned, and in late 1898 became a student of the New England Conservatory
of Music in Boston to study violin. According to Franci Washburn, Zitkala-Ša was
evidently an accomplished violinist since she performed as a soloist “[w]hen the Carlisle
Indian School Band toured the Northeast in the spring of 1900” (279-280).
Zitkala-Ša, the Writer
Around 1900 is when Gertrude Simmons decided to re-name herself, Zitkala-Ša
(Red Bird). Based on one of Zitkala-Ša’s letters to Carlos Montezuma, which P. Jane
Hafen provides in her text, “Gertrude Simmons Bonnin: For the Indian Cause,” ZitkalaŠa decided to change her name after a family dispute (130). She utilized this name as a
pen name for her writings throughout her career, beginning with the following short
stories: “Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” “The School Days of an Indian Girl” and
“An Indian Teacher Among Indians” (Welch 38). Within these writings, Zitkala-Ša
reveals the unjust treatment her family experienced at the hands of White people and the
traumatic experiences that she, as well as other Indian children, endured while attending
boarding school. According to Welch, Zitkala-Ša received such a positive response from
40
her readers that Harper’s Bazaar incorporated a brief synopsis of her work in the column,
‘Persons Who Interest Us’ in their April 1900 issue (38). However, not everyone was
pleased with Zitkala-Ša’s writings, Colonel Pratt was infuriated at what he perceived as
her ingratitude toward the boarding school system and perhaps the “generosity” of the
American government. Pratt contemptuously responded to Zitkala-Ša by publicly calling
her a pagan in 1902. Zitkala-Ša responded in kind by publishing an article titled, “Why I
Am a Pagan.” In this piece, Zitkala-Ša reminds the American public that Indians and
Anglo Americans are both God’s creatures. Moreover, Zitkala-Ša fervently justifies her
love for her Native religion, which is expressed in the following passage:
I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the
voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the ripling of
mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism,
then at present, at least, I am a Pagan. (803)
During this time, Zitkala-Ša was experiencing challenges in her personal life, as
well. She became engaged to Carlos Montezuma, and they planned to marry in
November 1901. Their relationship most likely began during one of Montezuma’s visits
to Carlise while Zitkala-Ša. instructed there (Hafen 130). Leon Speroff’s text, Carlos
Montezuma, M.D. A Yavapai American Hero: The Life and Times of an American
Indian, 1866-1923, provides an extensive account of Montezuma’s life. Speroff maintains
that Montezuma was Yavapai and originally named Wassaja. In 1871 at the young age of
five or six he was kidnapped by a band of Pima (Akimel O’odham) warriors who took
him to Adamsville, Arizona, in order to be sold as a servant. Carlo Gentile, an Italian
41
enterprenuer, photogropher and miner noticed him and purchased Wassaja with the
intention of adopting him and renamed him Carlos Montezuma. According to Speroff and
Montezuma’s biography, which he provides in his text, Montezuma spent his adolescent
life traveling with Gentile and periodically being cared for by friends of Gentile as he
attended school in Chicago and New York. In 1884, Montezuma received a Bachelor of
Science degree in Chemistry from the University of Illinois, and a medical degree from
Chicago Medical College in 1889. Zitkala-Ša and Montezuma held differing political
views regarding the assimilation policies, and they also differed on their personal views
regarding spousal roles (24-26, 87-90, 212, 232). In the text, Carlos Montezuma, M.D.
and the Changing World of American Indians, author Peter Iverson asserts that
Montezuma completely supported Pratt’s assimilation policy of ‘Kill the Indian and save
the man’ (9-10). His views were more than likely the result of having spent the majority
of his life among White society, while Zitkala-Ša believed in creating a hybrid
assimilation—in other words she believed in incorporating the positive and valuable
aspects of both Native culture and White society. According to Speroff, Zitkala-Ša felt
threatened by Montezuma’s domineering behavior. As such, she feared that marriage
with him would require her to abandon her activism. Based on Zitkala-Ša’s letters to
Montezuma, which Speroff provides, she was a progressive, strong willed, independent
woman, who refused to subject herself to such oppression. As a result of their opposing
views, Zitkala-Ša canceled their engagment and their relationship came to an end. Several
years would pass before they would resume a platonic and professional relationship as
collegues in the Society of American Indians (211-232).
42
Although Zitkala-Ša’s personal life was challenging at this time, her professional
career was budding. According to Washburn, in the summer of 1901 Zitkala-Ša returned
to the Yankton Sioux reservation in order to care for her aging mother and collect stories
from her community to preserve oral traditions and to teach for the Yankton agency
school—a position she found important, in that she felt she was directly helping her
people (282). In addition, Zitkala-Ša published additional works in 1901, which included
her first book, Old Indian Legends, short stories, “The Soft-Hearted Sioux” and “The
Trial Path,” that were published in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, and “A Warriors
Daughter,” and Sioux legend,“Iya, the Camp-Eater,” which were published in
Everybody’s Magazine and the Atlantic Monthly in 1902 (Davidson and Norris xviii;
Speroff 215).
Zitkala-Ša married Raymond Telephause Bonnin in May of 1902. His mother
was a Yankton Dakota Sioux and his father was French. Together they had a son,
Raymond Ohiya (Winner) Bonnin who was born seven months after they wed. Shortly
after his birth, Raymond Sr. was offered a position as a purchasing clerk at the Uintah
Agency in the Uintah Ouray Ute Reservation in Utah. During the fourteen years the
Bonnins resided on the Ute Reservation both provided community services for the
Indians. Raymond acted as a a lawyer for the Ute, while Zitkala-Ša became the Agency
school’s music teacher and formed the school’s band. She also taught basket-weaving,
cooking and informed the Utes about hygeine and healthcare, in addition to being a
housewife and mother (Speroff 228, 232; Washburn 283).
43
During her years in Utah, Zitkala-Ša co-wrote a theatrical production, “The
Sundance Opera,” with William J. Hansen, a White Mormon music teacher from Vernal,
Utah, which premiered in Utah in 1913. This work marked the beginning of Zitkala-Ša’s
response to the political and economic issues that were affecting American Indians during
that era, because it addressed the federal government’s prohibition of American Indian
religious ceremonies, like the Sundance of the Plains tribes (Davidson and Norris xx-xxi).
An interesting, if not ironic change of events, is pointed out by authors Speroff,
Washburn, and P. Jane Hafen in her edited text, Dreams and Thunder, when the Bonnins
decided to send their son, Ohiya, to a Benedictine boarding school in Illinois in 1913.
This decision was ironic because Zitkala-Ša herself had endured such difficulties as a
child in boarding school. Yet, at the time, she felt apprehensive toward the spiritual well
being of the Utes, which was most likely due to her observation of their peyote use.
Therefore, she wanted to ensure that her son received a proper education. This descion
was also probably motivated by her and her husband’s demanding work schedules and
lifestyles (Hafen xix; Speroff 232, 234-235; Washburn 286-288).
Zitkala-Ša and the Native American Church
In 1914, Zitkala-Ša became an advisory board member of the Society of
American Indians (SAI) based in Washington, D.C. In the text, The Great Confusion In
Indian Affairs: Native Americans and Whites in the Progressive Era, scholar, Tom Holm
maintains that SAI was a pan-Indian organization (65). As such, a number of members
were mixed-bloods, which included Zitkala-Ša, Charels O. Eastman and Arthur C.
Parker. In addition, “Individuals with ‘non-Indian blood’ could be non-voting associate
44
members” (Speroff 334, 337, 338). Holm asserts that the Native blood quantum
requirement for membership was only one-sixteenth, therefore, the Society probably
included members who did not ‘look’ Indian but had Native ancestry (65). Zitkala-Ša’s
membership enabled her to join forces with these Native American activists and Carlos
Montezuma. Prior to her official membership Zitkala-Ša communicated with her
collegues via letters or when she attended SAI’s annual meetings. In 1916, she was
appointed secretary for the SAI. As a result, Zitkala-Ša and her husband moved to
Washington. Her position as secretary enabled her to work more closely with her
collegues and enhanced her role as an advocate for Native American issues (Speroff 235,
238-242). For instance, Zitkala-Ša vigorously promoted the Sun Dance as an integral
religious tradition, while adamantly opposing other Native American religious practices,
such as the ingestion of peyote, within the Native American Church. The Sundance was a
ritual which Zitkala-Ša had been familiar with, being that it was a part of the Dakota
culture. Moreover, this ritual did not incorporate any mind-altering substances. Therefore,
she was not familiar with the use of peyote in religious traditions (Washburn 287-288). It
is important to note that those who perceived peyote as a mind-altering substance and
narcotic were predominantly White members of Western society and others who agreed
with their view. Whereas, Native Americans who ingested peyote for ceremonial
purposes perceived it as sacred. Zitkala-Ša shared traditional Sioux elders view toward
peyote, who according to Thomas Constantine Marqoukis perceived it as not their way
(Peyote and the Yankton Sioux: The Life and Times of Sam Necklace 145). In the essay,
“The Menace of Peyote,” Zitkala-Ša expresses her disgust toward the the deteriorating
45
effects that substances such as alcohol had on Indian people and perceived peyote as a
substance that had the same effect. Zitkala-Ša viewed religion as “the adoration of the
Maker with a rational mind. No one in the state of drunkeness, by whatsoever cause, can
be in his rational mind; and he cannot practice religion” (240). This view fueled ZitkalaŠa’s negative conviction toward peyote. According to Davidson and Norris, Zitkala-Ša’s
perspective was similar to those of many ‘nineteenth-century feminists who . . . became
strong temperance activists in response to what they perceived as a danger to both social
and family welfare’ (xxii). Zitkala-Ša was so determined in her mission to prohibit peyote
that she joined forces with former rival, Henry Pratt, in order to gain support toward her
effort.
Zitkala-Ša’s position in Washington, D.C. and in the proximity of political policymaking allowed her to testify with Pratt in Congressional hearings regarding peyote use
in Native American religious ceremonies (Washburn 289). In the article, “Detecting
Indianness: Gertrude Bonnin’s Investigation of Native American Identity,” author Cari
Carpenter asserts that Zitkala-Ša’s opposition toward peyote brought her criticism from
pro-peyote advocates James Mooney and Cleavor Warden. Carpenter maintains that
Mooney was a non-Native anthropologist who supported the Native American religious
practice of peyote use. Warden was an Arapoho ethnographer who also supported the
ceremonial use of peyote, both of whom questioned the authenticity of Zitkala-Ša’s
ethnic background as a counter attack toward her position. Mooney exclaimed that
Zitkala-Ša ‘claims to be a Sioux woman’ (150). While Warden accused Zitkala-Ša of
being a half-breed who did not know her ancestors or kindred (150). In the end, Congress
46
decided against the prohibition of peyote and relegated its regulation to state and local
jurisdictions. Congress’ decision, along with the criticisms she endured, must have been a
humilitang and dissapointing experience for Zitkala-Ša, but she would not be defeated.
Zitkala-Ša’s experience within the peyote controversy provided her with political
knowledge that would benefit her in her future activism. For instance, Zitkala-Ša
eventually became the primary supervisor of “all correspondence between SAI and the
Indian Office, presented lectures, and served as the official representative of SAI”
(Washburn 290). In addition, Hafen affirms that she was a contributing editor to the
American Indian Magazine (“Gertrude Simmons Bonnin” 133-134). Scholars, David L.
Johnson and Raymond Wilson maintain that this periodical expressed SAI’s literary
political views and informed readers of the implications of legislation on Native
Americans (“Gertrude Simmons Bonnnin, 1876-1938” 30).
Faithful to her People
In 1918, a chaotic transition occurred within the presidinecy of SAI due to
factionalism within the organization. Montezuma and the editor-in-chief at the time,
Arthur C. Parker, a Seneca, did not agree on how to deal with the Office of Indian
Affairs. According to James Cox’s and commentaries by Parker, which he provides in his
article, “Yours for the Indian Cause,” Parker’s anti-Tribal views were “paternalistic” and
condescending. He believed complete assimilation was the only way in which Natives
would progress (179-180). Furthermore, his failure to take action to resolve the internal
conflict between SAI members regarding how to address the Bureau of Indian Affairs
irritated his SAI collegues. Authors, Iverson and Speroff, and James S. Olson and
47
Raymond Wilson contend in their text, Native Americans in the Twentieth Century, that
Montezuma held the Office of Indian Affairs accountable for the detached state of
Natives within American society and contended that the bureau should be terminated.
Parker opposed. As a result of the tensions in 1918, Charles O. Eastman, a Sioux became
the new president and Zitkala-Ša became editor-in-chief of American Indian Magazine
(104-105; 241-242; 94).
Zitkala-Ša’s literary contributions to the magazine varied during her employment
with SAI. Her first selections consisted of poetry and a memoir of the services she
provided to the Ute community while she resided on the reservation in which she
articulated her opposition toward peyote use, while a number of her other works spoke of
the government’s neglect, or assaults against Native people. In her article, “Chipeta,
Widow of Chief Ouray, with a Word About a Deal in Blankets” Zitkala-Ša specifically
demanded Native rights toward land and water claims, yet she remained firm on her
opposition of peyote use and continued to request the government’s support in this effort
(Cox 179-182).
While editor, Zitkala-Ša focused on the contemporary problems of the Native
American. She promoted SAI’s philosphy of improving ones-self through employment,
education and integrity. Zitkala-Ša supported self-determination and advocated for the
unification of pan-tribalism in order to strengthen and work toward “common causes”
(Speroff 332; Washburn 291-292).
Zitkala-Ša’s editorship began just as the First World War came to an end. With
the closing of this conflict, she perceived an opportunity for Native Americans to receive
48
global exposure through the peace talks that proceeded the war. Zitkala-Ša’s husband had
served in the war and had been promoted to captain during his service (Speroff 238). As
editor, Zitkala-Ša publicly utilized the fact that Native Americans had fought in the
World War as a reason that they be given citizenship. In this way, they could fully
participate in their self-determination by being able to vote and elect a Congress that had
an interest in their political issues and personal well being. Raymond’s veteran status
most likey provided Zitkala-Ša with additional motivation to justify Native veterans and
peoples right to vote. Some of her editorial comments expressed her support toward
Natives reparation for the disenfranchisment of their homeland and of the importance of
learning the English language. For instance, in the editorial, “The Black Hills Council,”
she advocates for reparation as a result of the U.S. government’s breach of the Treaty of
Fort Laramie, and contends that the Sioux [and essentially all Natives] should be able to
choose their own qualified lawyers. In addition, she demands Native Americans right to
citizenship, arguing that this right would enable their grievences to have validity and be
heard in a court of law (201-204). In addition, in “Letters to the Chiefs and Headmen of
the Tribes,” she urged Natives to educate and empower themselves by learning the
English language (199). Finally, in “Address by the Secretary-Treasurer, Society of
American Indians Annual Convention,” she encouraged them to live with integrity and
honesty by being proud of their Native culture and urged women to join SAI since, as
mothers, they were responsible for ensuring that future generations learn important
“principles” such as “consciousness” and preserverance (213-214).
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In 1919, Zitkala-Ša and her husband withdrew their membership from SAI. The
Bonnins made this decision for two reasons: (1) because of the pro-peyote faction
members’ increase in control of SAI due to their candidate’s, Thomas Sloan’s, rise to the
presidency, and (2) they were in financial difficulties as a result of their unpaid work
toward the SAI magazine, and Zitkala-Ša realized that the efforts of the Society had
become stagnant (Speroff 242).
The Bonnins remained in Washington, D.C. after their resignations. Raymond
began studying law with the intention of fighting for Native land rights. However, after
he received his law degree he was never admitted to the bar. Zitkala-Ša’s career, on the
other hand, continued to rise. She was frequently requested to lecture at various events
and often performed classical and popular musical recitals (Washburn 293).
Zitkala-Ša became an active member of the General Federation of Women’s
Clubs and in 1921 founded the Indian Welfare Committee (through the General
Federation of Women’s Clubs) in order to continue her advocacy of Native rights and
citizenship. In addition, she published her text, American Indian Stories, which provided
a variety of works that recalled her experiences as a student within the boarding school
system in “The School Days of an Indian Girl,” and shared her memory as a former
boarding school teacher in “An Indian Teacher Among Indians” (Six 384).
In 1923, she joined forces with Charles H. Fabens, an attorney for the American
Indian Defense Organization, and Matthew K. Sniffen, secretary of the Indian Rights
Organization. Together they investigated corruption in the allotment program, which
resulted from the Curtis Act of 1898 within the state of Oklahoma. This act dismanteled
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the autonomy of the Five Southern Tribes—Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks
and Seminoles—and allowed the government to usurp Tribal member’s land and give
them alloted land in return. Corrupt county legislators along with an equally corrupt legal
system projected the full-blooded Tribal members into poverty within two decades. With
the enforcement of new taxes, the Natives were suseptible to corporate interests and real
estate developers (Washburn 293). Their research resulted in a thirty-nine page pamphlet
titled, Okalahoma’s Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft and Exploitation of the Five
Civilized Tribes—Legalized Robbery, that was published by the Indian Rights
Association in 1924. Although this document was initially ineffective, it led to the future
formation of the Meriam Commission (Speroff 244).
The 1920’s proved to be a particularly productive decade for Zitkala-Ša. Her
friendship with John Collier enabled her to become an ardent activist for the Indian
reform movement during this era. She had become a member of the American Indian
Defense Organization. She established the National Council of American Indians in
1926, in which she served as president, and her husband served as secretary-treasurer.
Zitkala-Ša guided the council to facilitate the political progression of the state of Native
Americans by keeping the council abreast with contemporary political matters and by
vigourously organizing the Native vote enacted by the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
(Washburn 294).
As prominent members of the council and representatives for Native Americans,
Zitkala-Ša and her husband visited reservations and Indian centers across the nation.
They closely monitored the political actions of the Office of Indian Affairs and testified
51
numerous times before the Senate and House committees on legislation that impacted
Native Americans. She utilized her intelligence and sophisticated articulation in order to
advocate for Native Americans in the council’s newsletter and in letters to legislators and
newspapers (Washburn 294).
Sadly, in 1932 her friendship with John Collier came to an end after President
Franklin D. Rosevelt appointed him commissioner of Indian Affairs. According to
Speroff, as commissioner, Collier promoted the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA). This
act terminated allotment and affirmed the right of Native self-determination. It supported
reservation day schools, Tribal government systems, and preferential hiring of Natives
within the BIA (245). Despite the progress made on behalf of Collier, Zitkala-Ša opposed
the implementation of the IRA because Collier did not confer with the tribes during its
development and implementation. Furthermore, the Bonnins advocated for Yankton
Tribal member rights whether they lived on or off the rezervation. Whereas, Collier
insisted that these rights be limited to Yanktons living on the reservation. Zitkala-Ša and
Collier were equally firm on their convictions. Their conflict prevented them from
reaching a resolution regarding the IRA and resuming their friendship (244-245).
Zitkala-Ša maintained her position as president of the National Council of
American Indians until her death in 1938. Throughout her lifetime, she made a number of
accomplishments She was an extraordinary writer, musical composer and political
activist. Most importantly, Zitkala-Ša paved a political path for Native American women,
and Native peoples in general. She provided a foundation for advocating for Native issues
that remain points of contention, issues such as identity, Native rights to citizenship and
52
Tribal membership, Native rights to land, natural resources and to the benefits of
government programs that enhance their well being. Zitkala-Ša was more than a political
activist, she was a champion for all Native people.
Wendy Rose
Growing up Urban
Wendy Rose was born Bronwen Elizabeth Edwards on May 7, 1948 in Oakland,
California to Betty Edwards who was of Miwok-Anglo descent, and Charles Loloma who
was a full-blooded Hopi. Rose’s maternal grandmother, Clare, or Nana (as Rose calls
her), was born sometime in the 1880s to a German father, Maurice, and an Irish and
Scottish mother, Elizabeth. In Rose’s autobiographical essay, “Neon Scars,” she states
that her maternal great-grandfather, “was the son of German immigrants who had
traveled to Bear Valley, California from Missouri by wagon train” (256). They remained
in that area thereafter. According to Rose, her maternal great-grandmother’s Irish and
Scottish heritage “had a noble and well-documented lineage. [Elizabeth’s] people were
known by name all the way back to the eighth century on the Scottish side and to the
Crusades on the Irish” (256). Rose’s maternal grandfather, Sydney, was an immigrant
from England (256). In an interview, titled, “An interview with Wendy Rose” published
in the journal, News from Native California, Rose states that Elizabeth’s anscestors had
traveled to Canada in 1830 and re-located to California in 1849 (30). Rose’s biological
father was an enrolled member of his tribe, and was from the Hotevilla village on the
Hopi Reservation in Northeastern Arizona. Rose was raised by her mother and Anglo
53
step-father, Dick Edwards, and was given her step-father’s last name. The Edwards
family resided near the San Francisco area throughout Rose’s adolescence.
In “Neon Scars,” Rose admits that her mixed-blood heritage was the cause of
much rejection that she endured from both sides of her family. Rose maintains that her
Nana conceived Betty with a Miwok man and that this conception was quite “possibly
involuntary” (257). Clare’s unplanned pregnancy with a Miwok man caused Rose’s
maternal family members to despise the Native blood within the family. Rose was most
likely discarded by her mother’s family because of Betty’s decision to have a child with a
Native man and because Rose inherited the Native features of her biological parents
(255). According to Rose, she experienced cruel treatment from a number of her
relatives. She claims that her Nana favored her older brother Stephen because of his fair
skin and Anglo features. When she and her brother were ill as children, her Nana would
nurse Stephen back to health, but when Rose became ill her Nana would bring Stephen
into her home in order to prevent him from contracting Rose’s illness—behavior her
Nana took pleasure in (257-258). Sadly, Rose admits that her own biological parents
rejected her. In her autobiography, she states that during her adolescence her mother was
“ too sick to care” (254), which implies that her mother was either emotionally,
psychologically, physically, or due to all of these reasons, unable to give Rose the care,
love and nurturing she needed. The abuse that Rose endured continued with her stepfather who physicaly and emotionally abused her as a child (254-259). Furthermore, Rose
felt isolated from her father and her Hopi heritage because she was not raised by him, not
54
raised on the Hopi reservation, and felt like she had no claim to her Hopi heritage in this
matriarchal and matrilineal culture.
One of the aspects of her life, which appears to have been a source of solace for
her was her Roman Catholic religion and education. In an interview with Carol Hunter,
published in the MELUS journal, Rose maintains that she was “intensely religious” as a
child, and that she acted in outlandish ways (79). Rose admits, “I would do things like
run away from my parents’ house in the middle of the night to attended Benediction, and
then get punished, like a good little martyr when I got home” (79). Another time, she told
her step-grandfather that he would “go to hell” if he didn’t convert to Catholicism. Rose
states that she remained a Catholic and attended Catholic school until she decided to
leave the Church at the age of 14 (79).
As a result of the abuse and neglect that Rose suffered, she began abusing drugs
as a teen, dropped out of highschool at El Cerrito in California and ran away from home.
Rose admits that at one point, her drug use and chaotic life style caused her to become
very sick, as a result she was hospitalized (“Neon Scars” 254). In the article, “Wendy
Rose,” author Helen Jaskoski asserts that one important decision Rose made during this
time was to make the first of two visits to her father’s birthplace in Arizona (260). Rose’s
tumultuous life continued throughout her late teens and early adulthood. In “Neon Scars,”
Rose informs us that she married her first husband at age 18, and her second husband at
age 19, however, these marriages were both short lived. They were volatile and dismal
relationships. During this time Rose lived in modest residences—a basement, then a
trailer. In order to earn a living, she worked in Yosemite National Park for a while and
55
then she sold Indian crafts. The dysfunction in her second marriage consisted of drunken
fights and spousal abuse. Before this relationship finally ended, her husband physically
abused her and attempted to burn their house down. It was through her second marriage
that she attained her husband’s surname, Rose, and decided to keep it. After this
relationship came to a close, Rose decided to move to Nevada, but she was so poor at this
time that she nearly died of starvation. After this choatic time, Rose finally returned
home. Unfortunately, since she was unhappy and unfullfilled with her life, she began
overeating to soothe her emotional pain, which only caused her to gain unwanted weight
(Rose 255).
Activism for the American Indian
Rose was a teen and young adult during the 1960s and 1970s, a period of
alternative artistic circles and the rise of minority political factions that grew out of the
civil rights era. Rose gravitated toward these creative and progressive groups, began
associating with bohemian artists in the San Francisco area, and became a part of the
American Indian Movement (AIM). In fact, Rose participated in the occupation of
Alcatraz Island. Rose first became motivated to write during this time. Her experiences
with the bohemian crowd and with AIM inspired her to write some of her earliest poetry.
Some of these poems were not published for a number of years. Once published these
poems became part of anthologies and her first collection of poems, Hopi Roadrunner
Dancing, published in 1973 under the pen name, Chiron Khanshendel. According to
Jaskoski, Rose chose the name Chiron because it reminded her of “her love of horses and
her facination with the mythical centaur” (260). Khanshendel was chosen simply because
56
she was fond of it. Within this text, Rose pays a tribute to those who participated in the
occupation of Alcatraz in the poem, “Oh My People I Remember.” The following excerpt
from this poem expresses her sentiments regarding that experience: “in this fellowship I
saw, confused and / unbelieving, it was I holding them up / and I was also held. / Why me
I asked. More rational: How? / Neither leader nor fullblood, / how and why me?” (Rose
6-7).
This verse informs us that Rose respected Natives unification for a common
cause, the belief in asserting and demanding Native rights during the occupation.
Moreover, Rose was grateful to have been accepted by her comrades, especially since she
had experienced such isolation as a result of being a mixed-blood. Another poem in this
collection, “Newborn Woman, May 7, 1948,” speaks of her coming to terms with her
identity and her sense of belonging. The following verse expresses Rose’s insights:
“Dreams of my mother i shattered, i arrived . . . .i indian / I desert, I newborn woman”
(9). This poem expresses her growing acceptance of her Indian heritage and her ability to
embrace that part of her.
In an interview with Joseph Bruchac, Rose informs us that her early literary
influences were Robinson Jeffers and Scott Momaday. Some of the first published poetry
she was exposed to was Jeffers’. She affirms that although he was not a Native poet, his
work was still important to her in that it provided her with an example of “putting a poet
in a landscape that’s familiar, because the area he was writing about was where I grew
up-the northern California and central California coast” (253). Rose states that Momaday
enabled her, as well as many other Native writers, to feel comfortable with being both
57
Native and a writer. She asserts that his achievement of winning the Pulitzer prize in
fiction, “made a real difference to us because I think so many of us had assumed that no
matter what our individual goals might be, we had to somehow chose between fulfilling
the goal and having any degree of integrity as Indian people” (253-254). Rose’s
sentiment expresses how important it was/is for her to remain true to herself and to her
Native people.
American Indian Academic
From 1966 through 1980, Rose attended Cabrillo and Contra Costa Junior
Colleges, and the University of California, Berkeley. In the interview with Hunter, Rose
informs us that she stopped self-medicating with illegal drugs and discovered her
academic field of interest during the early stages of her scholastic career. Rose maintains
that she was about 19 years old when she met a man who was an anthropology professor
at her junior college. It was this man who helped her recover from her drug abuse. Rose
was inspired by this man and saw him as a father figure. As a result, she decided to major
in anthropology (Rose as qtd. in Hunter 69). According to Rose, she was involved with
the Economic Opportunity Program at her junior college. It was with their assistance that
she was accepted to the University of California, Berkeley, where she would attain her
B.A. and M.A. in anthropology in 1976 and 1978 respectively.
Once Rose arrived at Berkeley, she soon began to doubt her chosen major. First,
the anthropology professor, whom she admired for so long, had abandoned her.
According to Rose, “[he] didn’t care to continue our friendship once I left his college”
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(qtd. in Hunter 69). As a result, she began to lose interest in the field. In her interview
with Hunter, Rose recalled:
The longer I stayed in anthropology, the less sense it made to me and the
less it seemed to be in the same world as my people and myself. I realized
that it had been used as a tool by the ‘enemy’ and came from a colonial
context, even though there certainly are people I respect and like who are
anthropologists and who have helped Indian people in some very practical
ways. But also it is upon occasion a tool of the enemy. (69)
This excerpt expresses some of the struggles she experienced while an
undergraduate and graduate student within the department of anthropology at Berkeley
and in the field of anthropology in general. Rose was frustrated with the blatant racism
and arrogant researchers whom she felt treated Native people like mere objects for their
analysis. Yet, at the same time she met anthropologists who treated Natives with dignity
and genuinely tried to help them. In her interview with Bruchac, Rose expresses the
disillusionment she felt toward the department as she candidly admits, “[t]here were
many times when I almost dropped out. I spent the entire first year at Berkeley, in my
junior year as a transfer student from junior college, huddling in a corner in Native
American Studies drinking tea and trembling” (260).
Rose found an outlet for her frustration in her text, Academic Squaw: Reports to
the World from the Ivory Tower, published in 1977. This work contains poems that
express her struggle with being a scholar and a subject of study, and of the racism that
59
she experienced. The selection, “Indian Anthropologist: Overhanging Sand Dune Story”
exemplifies this struggle:
They hope – the professors – to keep
the keyhole blocked where my mind
is pipelined to my soul;
they block it with the shovel and pick
of the pioneer spirit, the very energy
that made western earth turn over
from her stony coma and
throw us off her back, bucking
and hollering like stars
were whipping her. (lines 1-10)
This excerpt expresses the threat the professors felt from Rose’s presence and of
the researchers with their colonial mind set who excavated and found artifacts, which
they took for themselves while trying to throw the Natives off their track, yet the Natives
did not quietly sit back and allow this injustice, instead they gave these researchers a
fight. Rose’s words indicate that she does not see herself as one of these deceitful,
conniving researchers in the way that she is speaking about them. Rose appears to be
more of an observer, aware of their deeds. Rose affirmed that the poems in this collection
were written as a “survival kit. . .” (qtd. in Bruchac 260). She was proud of this work and
felt strongly about the convictions she expressed within its content. Rose candidly
admitted, “one of the most pleasant things I have ever done was the day that the book
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came out of Brother Benet’s press. I went and stuck copies in all my professor’s
mailboxes (qtd. in Bruchac 260).
Although Rose experienced challenges in her academic life during this time, her
personal life was going quite well. In 1976, she married Arthur Murata, a judo expert and
magician. Rose dedicated her second volume of poems to him. This volume is titled,
Long Division: A Tribal History, which was published in 1976 and later in 1981 by
Strawberry Press. Rose was able to vent her frustrations about the patronizing attitudes of
White anthropologists in this text with poems such as, “The Anthropology Convention.”
The following excerpt reveals how the Native American is constantly being watched and
their very lives and possesions coveted: “From the day we are born / there are eyes all
around / watching for our exotic pots of words / spilled from our coral and rawhide
tongues” (2). Rose’s public expressions and opinions of the discrimination and
marginalization of Native people is one way in which she remained true to them.
Rose was determinated to maintain her integrity to herself and to her people as a
Native scholar in the field of anthropology. She realized that she could make a difference
by being a mediator for Indians, corporations and government agencies (Rose as qtd. in
Hunter 69-70). Rose found her purpose as an unofficial liason for AIM, archaeologists,
developers and city government negotiating matters over burial grounds. She asserts that
this was a very frustrating experience because the Indians were being decieved and the
archaeoligists did not want to work with her because she was a representaive for AIM
(Rose as qtd. in Hunter 70).
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To add insult to injury, Rose realized that the archeologists were using her in
order to misinform the Natives. Inevitably, she became exhausted with the whole fiasco
and discontinued her intermediary role. However, Rose did not remain silent about the
atrocities she witnessed. Her poem, “Three Thousand Dollar Death Song,” discusses the
inhumane treatment of the archeologists toward the remains of the Native Americans, in
the following excerpt:
How have you priced us?
At what cost?
removed us? What price
the pits where out bones share a single word:
remembering...
still we don’t see
how one century has turned our dead
into something else – what you call
specimens. (Academic Squaw: Reports to the World from the Ivory
Tower, lines 35-43)
Injustices toward Native Americans along with the demand for rights for their
anscestral land and respect for them as people have been re-occuring themes within
Rose’s work. Her integrity has contributed to the success she has experienced both
professionally and personally. Rose’s professionalism helped her secure a teaching
position at the University of California, Berkeley where she taught in the Native
American and Ethnic Studies programs from 1979 through 1983. During this time she
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published several texts, Builder Kachina: A Home-Going Cycle (1979), Aboriginal
Tattooing in California (1979), Lost Copper (1980), “American Indian Poets and
Publishing” (1981), and What Happened When the Hopi Hit New York (1982). These
texts discuss various themes that range from the very personal as with the poem, “Builder
Kachina: Going Home” from the text, Builder Kachina: A Home-Going Cycle where
Rose embraces her Tribal roots to scholarly work found in the text, Aboriginal Tattooing
in California, which provides research conducted by Rose about the purpose and meaning
of tattooing done by various California Natives during pre-colonial times. Lost Copper is
the first text which compiles a collection of her poems from previous texts. It also
expresses her connection to the earth as in the poem, “Landscape for this Indian woman.”
In addition, in a postscript poem within this text, titled, “Epilog” Rose honors three
contemporary female Native writers whom she admires—Leslie Marmon Silko, Paula
Gunn Allen and Joy Harjo. In the interview with Bruchac, Rose states that she respects
these women because “they have all made strong statements about being Indian writers,
both in their creative work and peripheral statements in interviews or in articles that they
have written” (266). Rose’s article “American Indian Poets and Publishing” discusses the
issue of “Whiteshamanism,” a situation in which Whites who have become educated in
Native modalities of healing claim to be healers, medicine men or shamans. Finally, the
text, What Happened When the Hopi Hit New York, is comprised of Rose’s personal and
political perspectives delivered in sarcasitic humor, which can be seen in poems such as,
“Cemetery: Stratford, Connecticut.”
63
From 1983-1984 Rose was a professor at California State University, Fresno, and
in 1984, accepted a teaching position at Fresno City College. During the time Rose
instructed at Fresno City College she became the head of the American Indian Studies
Program. As head and faculty member, Rose ensured the implementation of a variety of
courses related to American Indian lifeways and culture. In 2003, Rose retired from
Fresno City College due to a decline in health caused by a “thyroid condition” (Godfrey
71). Between 1985-2002 Rose continued her stream of success in her professional career
with the publication of several texts, such as, The Halfbreed Chronicles (1985), Going to
War With All My Relations (1983), Now Proof She’s Gone (1994), Bone Dance (1994)
and Itch Like Crazy (2002). Rose also published several articles and contributed her work
within anthologies, such as, The Great Pretenders: Further Reflections on
Whiteshamanism (1992) and For Some It’s Time For Morning (1992). This is by no
means a complete list of Rose’s work, but rather a brief compilation of works she has
contributed to the body of American Indian Literature over the past two and a half
decades.
In an interview with Kathleen Godfrey, Rose indicates that she and her husband
presently live and work in Northern California, where they manage their store, Oh Grow
Up, which sells “science fiction—and fantasy-related collectibles” and Rose’s line of
jewlery, “Laughing Lizard” (qtd. in Godfrey 72). In addition, Rose is a member of the
Federation of Teachers. Over the past 40 years, Rose has maintained her advocacy for
Native Americans, as a teacher, writer, bibliographer, editor, researcher, artist, consultant,
and advisor, and she has served as a facilitator for the Association of Non-Federally
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Recognized Californian Tribes. Throughout Rose’s career she has always maintained her
guiding principle about staying true to herself and to her people. Rose’s writings have
discussed the discrimination and disenfranchiesment of Indigenous people from various
parts of the world. For example, her text, The Halfbreed Chronicles, discusses injustice
endured by a Salvadorean woman named Julia Pastrana in the poem “Julia” and the
poem, “Truganinny,” shows the cruelty suffered by a Tasmanian woman. Subject matter
such as this has enabled Rose to reach out to many people who can benefit from her
words of frustration, injustice, rage, to self-acceptance and self-empowerment. Rose’s
work has contributed a distinguishing voice to the growing field of Native American
Literature and she has accomplished this by staying faithful to her own counsel—
“protect” your people (Rose as qtd. in Hunter 72).
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CHAPTER 5: ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
The first part of this chapter presents an analysis of the thesis research. Two
research questions are answered: (1) How were Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose
marginalized? and (2) How did their experiences with marginalization affect their
personal and professional lives and activism? The second part of this chapter is a
comparison of the two activists. This analysis provides selected examples, not a complete
account of the varied ways in which these women were marginalized and the effects these
experiences had on their lives and activism.
The first part of the analysis focuses on the life of Zitkala-Ša and the second part
focuses on the life of Wendy Rose. In order to provide further information on their
experiences, a list of three comparative analysis questions was asked about their lives and
experience with marginalization. The questions are: (1) In what ways are Zitkala-Ša and
Wendy Rose similar and different ethnically? (2) How were Zitkala-Ša’s and Wendy
Rose’s experiences with marginalization similar and different? and (3) What were the
similarities and differences in the way marginalization impacted their personal and
professional lives and activism? The questions are answered according to their relevance
to the subject’s life experiences. Each subject was examined individually, and then the
subjects were compared. An examination of literature by Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose and
about them is utilized in order to determine how they were marginalized by the federal
government, American society, their own community, and the educational institutions
they attended.
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The Marginalization of Zitkala-Ša
Identity
The fact that Zitkala-Ša was born a female, mixed-blood (half Native American
and Anglo) in the late 1800s instantly placed her in a state of oppression and
marginalization. She was born and grew up during the eras of colonialism and postcolonialism in which women were seen as second class citizens in relation to men. Native
people were not even citizens. In addition, a number of colonial tactics were continuing
to oppress and marginalize Native Americans, including racism, discrimination,
disenfranchisement, dispossession of land and natural resources, and warfare. The social
tensions of these eras reflect the point that authors Tucker and Jordan and Weedon make
that people are subjected to marginalization because of their gender and race (7-8; 213214). Jordan and Weedon assert that racism and colonialism are central factors to
understanding gender relations and women of color are subjected to oppression and
racism because of their gender and ethnicity (213-214).
Early Memories of a Harsh Reality
In an excerpt from Zitkala-Ša’s memoir, “The School Days of an Indian Girl,” she
describes one of her earliest experiences of marginalization when she went to boarding
school at the age of eight (83-86). As noted in the biography section of this thesis, the
missionaries coerced her into going to boarding school. They romanticized the idea of
attending boarding school instead of informing her of its harsh reality.
Rigid colonizing strategies were implemented in the educational system by the
United States government to integrate the Natives into Anglo American society. Zitkala-
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Ša conveys the traumatic experience of having her hair cut by the boarding school staff.
She expresses that she felt violated and maimed as a result of this event (91). This type of
practice is only one example of the degrading efforts to assimilate Zitkala-Ša and many
other Native children. These procedures followed the “Kill the Indian and save the Man,”
doctrine which Colonel Richard Henry Pratt conceived and advocated (Iverson 9). Many
others, both Native and non-Native , followed this creed. This ideology informed policies
that not only diminished the Native’s culture and identity; they also diminished the
Natives’ spirit and made them feel less than human. The assimilation policy did not
consider the emotions of Native children. This practice of a dominant culture subjecting
and disempowering another culture is the process of marginalization.
Yearning for a Place to Belong
Zitkala-Ša experienced marginalization within the American educational system
and her own Native community. She did not quite fit into either of these environments
because she was a young, mixed-blood, female striving to further her education during a
time when according to White stereotypes, as a Yankton Dakota Sioux woman she was
expected to be “silent, invisible, segregated and submissive” (Gottesman 877). In
Davidson and Norris’ edited anthology of Zitkala-Ša’s writings, American Indian Stories,
Legends, and Other Writings, Zitkala-Ša reveals that her mother Ellen distrusted and
despised White people because of the harm they did to the Sioux. As a result, she
opposed her daughter’s decision to attend Anglo American schools throughout ZitkalaŠa’s adolescence and young adult life (68-70, 83-86, 100-104). Zitkala-Ša discussed her
mother’s disdain toward White society in the following excerpt:
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Though an illness left me unable to continue my college course, my pride
kept me from returning to my mother. Had she known of my worn
condition, she would have said the White man’s papers were not worth the
freedom and health I had lost by them. Such a rebuke from my mother
would have been unbearable, and as I felt then it would be far too true to
be comfortable. (104)
Zitkala-Ša developed ill health in the form of “stomach problems” and became
increasingly weary while a student at Earlham (Welch 37). Her mother could not relate to
her experience, the harsh treatment of Anglo society, and the periodic transitions of
coming back to a Native community that Zitkala-Ša was taught to deny. Ellen’s disdain
toward White people, coupled with her inability to understand Zitkala-Ša’s emotional
suffering, prevented her from being able to console her daughter. Ultimately, Ellen’s
disapproval of Zitkala-Ša’s decision to live in White society created a life-long rift
between them. As a young woman Zitkala-Ša was able to comprehend the reasons why
she was marginalized by both Native and non-Native society. She was a minority, female,
mixed-blood trying to fit into the dominant society by obtaining her education among
people who did not care to understand her, much less like her due to their prejudiced
preconceptions. Her mother, as well as other Native people who were traditional fullbloods, disinterested in learning the White man’s ways did not comprehend her feelings
of weariness and isolation.
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The Peyote Controversy: A Struggle for Self-determination
Zitkala-Ša’s efforts to prohibit peyote use within Native religious practices was
met with hostile opposition from both Native and non-Native individuals. Within this
opposition she was once again marginalized by those who disagreed with her position.
One of the methods used to refute her argument was to attack her ethnic identity. In the
text, American Indian Stories, Davidson and Norris contend that Zitkala-Ša’s reasons for
pursuing the prohibition of peyote were as follows: (1) She perceived peyotism as a
“debilitating and degenerating” substance that prevented Natives from being able to
practice their religion with a clear mind (xxii) and (2) She felt that peyote was a detriment
to society (xxii). In addition, Cox asserts that she felt that this substance prohibited the
Natives’ ability to be self-determining particularly with their “ability to own and control
the land wisely” (182). Based on the writings of Davidson and Norris, and Cox, ZitkalaŠa appears to have felt that if the Natives were not in their “right” minds how could they
be self-determining?
The tactics that her opponents used attacked her self-identity. As noted in the
biography section, James Mooney questioned the legitimacy and authenticity of her
Sioux identity and Cleaver Warden ridiculed the fact that she was a half-breed and argued
that as a result of her impure racial status she did not know her Sioux heritage (Carpenter
150). These racial statements express the prejudices that both Native and non-Native
people had toward mixed-bloods. These comments were intended to publicly emphasize
the fact that she was not a full-blood and therefore, was not a credible informant of
Native American culture. This personal attack must have been extremely offensive for
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Zitkala-Ša, since she only acknowledged her Dakota Sioux heritage and denied that her
father was non-Native (Edmunds 9). Yet, Zitkala-Ša did not allow this experience to
discourage her. Instead, she continued to fight in various battles for Native selfdetermination.
Further Attempts to Silence the Red Bird’s Voice
After the publication of Zitkala-Ša’s collaborative piece, Oklahoma’s Poor Rich
Indians, Congress decided to investigate the Oklahoma probate courts. According to
Welch, influential individuals of the dominant White society blocked Congressional
action in order to thwart further details from being exposed which would hinder their
agenda (49). Welch maintains that a warrant was issued for Zitkala-Ša’s arrest which
prevented her from attending the committee hearings that were underway in the state
(49). In this instance, Zitkala-Ša’s voice was only momentarily silenced. Based on
Welch’s work it appears that the influential forces in Oklahoma along with the political
atmosphere did not permit an immediate reaction that would protect the Natives in
Oklahoma from the corruption that was plaguing them. In the years to come, Zitkala-Ša’s
voice would inevitably be heard and influence scholars such as Angie Debo who reexposed the scandal in Oklahoma in her monograph, And Still the Waters Run
(Washburn 293-294). The literature shows that Zitkala-Ša was marginalized on the basis
of her race, gender, and identity. She suffered prejudices and was discriminated against
by Native and non-Native people in hostile, insensitive ways because of her mixed-blood
status.
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The Affects of Living within the Margins
Activism
Zitkala-Ša began cultivating her activist skills while a student at Earlham College
where she found her voice and effective mediums, which provided the space for her voice
to be heard and appreciated. Evidence of the beginning stages of her activism is exhibited
by the works which she published in Earlham’s student newspaper (Six 383) and in her
participation as a contestant in two oratorical competitions. As a result of her first victory,
she competed in a state college oratorical competition as her colleges’ representative.
Zitkala-Ša recalls this memory in her text, “The School Days of an Indian Girl:”
Here again was a strong prejudice against my people . . . The slurs
against the Indian people that stained the lips of our opponents were
already burning like a dry fever in my breast.
But after the orations were delivered a deeper burn awaited me. There,
before the vast ocean of eyes, some college rowdies threw out a large
white flag, with a drawing of a most forlorn Indian girl on it. Under this
they had printed in bold black letters . . . “squaw.” Such worse than
barbarian rudeness embittered me. While we waited for the verdict of the
judges, I gleaned fiercely upon the throngs of palefaces. . . .
Then anxiously we watched the man carry toward the stage the
envelope containing the final decision.
There were two prizes given, that night, and one of them was mine!
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The evil spirit laughed within me when the white flag dropped out of
sight, and the hands which hurled it hung limp in defeat. (102-103)
Zitkala-Ša’s ability to maintain her composure and present her composition to a
hostile crowd shows that the cruelty she was subjected to influenced her to be strong, to
resist the limitations put forth by those who marginalized her, and to use her voice to
express what she believed in. Zitkala-Ša’s reaction exemplifies bell hooks’ concept of the
ability of the marginalized to create a site of resistance from within the margins, which
she discusses in her text, “Marginality as Site of Resistance.” According to hooks, within
this site of resistance the marginalized have a unique position which enables them to not
just survive their circumstances, but overcome adversity in ways that only those who are
faced with oppression can particularly conceive (341-343).
Zitkala-Ša Outspoken and Independent: A Woman of Principle
The marginalization Zitkala-Ša experienced influenced her to defy oppression in
any form. Her defiance was evident in her public retort to Colonel Pratt in her article,
“Why I Am a Pagan.” It is important to note that Zitkala-Ša wrote this article during a
time when the Ku Klux Klan were terrorizing those, who as Mark Thorburn points out,
“violated what the Klan considered the proper social order” which included Southern
fundamental values of Christianity (“South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials: 1871-1872”
297). Despite the social tensions during this time Zitkala-Ša fearlessly defended her
beliefs against those who tried to challenge her (Iverson 36; Washburn 280-283). This is
also evident in correspondence with her fiancé, at the time, Carlos Montezuma, which is
provided by Speroff. She states, “I wish I could make reply to your philosophy, but being
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neither a pugilist (like Col. Pratt) nor a debater (like you) I have to be content to do what
I feel without justifying or explaining myself” (218). Zitkala-Ša’s words reveal that her
conviction to live by her own principles was paramount. She was determined to be true to
herself even if it was in opposition to the man she loved. It is apparent that part of what
caused the termination of Zitkala-Ša and Montezuma’s engagement was their differing
beliefs regarding the assimilation of the Indians (Iverson 36-38; Washburn 282).
Montezuma agreed with the Anglo American ideology of the complete rejection of
Native ways while Zitkala-Ša believed in achieving a balance between the two worlds
(Washburn 282). These writings also reveal that Zitkala-Ša’s personal and political
values were inter-connected. It appears that Zitkala-Ša was adamant in her rejection of
oppression in both her general life and in her love life. According to Washburn, ZitkalaŠa was not about to suppress her work and who she was, as her fiancé would have
preferred in order to please him (282-283). This sentiment is expressed in the following
correspondence provided by Speroff, which is written by Zitkala-Ša to Montezuma: “I
am too independent. I would not like to have to obey another – never!” (219). To give up
herself and the work that meant so much to her would have been to submit to an
additional form of oppression and marginalization.
Reconnecting with Dakota Values
In part, Zitkala-Ša’s decision to marry a Yankton Dakota Sioux, Raymond
Bonnin, was influenced by the marginalization she previously endured. It is interesting
that she married a mixed-blood when she denied her own mixed-blood status. However,
even though Raymond was also a mixed-blood he was raised in the traditional Sioux way
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of life. It is evident that the cruel marginalization she experienced from the Anglo society
and their prejudicial ideologies acted as a comparative measure that re-enforced the value
of her culture (Iverson 34-38; Washburn 272-297). According to Iverson, marrying
someone from her culture mattered a great deal to Zitkala-Ša (35). Their marriage was a
complimentary relationship in that they were both Sioux, they shared similar cultural and
political views, and both agreed on the process in which the Native Americans should
assimilate to Anglo American society. Throughout her life with Bonnin, Zitkala-Ša
established and participated in many efforts that supported the progress of Native rights
and culture. They supported one another and collaborated for Native causes throughout
their lives together.
Advocacy for Native Dignity and Rights
A Voice for her People
The unjust, discriminating, and hostile treatments that Zitkala-Ša was subjugated
to and witnessed motivated her to vocalize her opinion about them, their affects on her
and on Native people. Her responses to these experiences were forms of activism through
written works and political activism. Zitkala-Ša addressed matters that she felt strongly
about, such as Natives right to equality and citizenship. As editor of the American Indian
Magazine, Zitkala-Ša wrote a number of editorial comments, such as “Hope in the
Returned Indian Soldier,” which advocated for Natives’ right to citizenship. She
professes, “The American people still remember how their early ancestors fled from the
autocracy of Europe to the open arms of the Red Man a few centuries ago. This memory
together with the proud record of the Indian in the world war just closed must move all
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those whose hearts are not stone” (210). Zitkala-Ša vigorously fought to attain the
Natives’ right to citizenship in part because she believed they deserved this right as the
original inhabitants of the American continent and because her husband had fought in the
war, which made this issue both a political and personal matter.
Her words are clever and carefully crafted in order to arouse a sense of
commonality between the Anglo Americans and the Natives by comparing the
American’s ancestors’ struggle for the right to liberty and justice to that of the Natives’
struggle for these same rights. Zitkala-Ša reminds the American public that their
ancestors were given refuge in the “arms of the Red Man. . .” (210). She closes by
pointing out that the Natives fought for the American Nation in World War I, and
indirectly accuses those who are not moved by these facts as having “hearts of stone”
(210). Her strategy of emphasizing the common endeavors of the Natives and the
European immigrants was meant to place Natives on equal ground with Anglos in order
to incite support for the Natives’ effort.
An Alliance with Agency
Organizations
Zitkala-Ša became a member of a number of organizations in order to promote
Native American rights. These alliances gave Zitkala-Ša agency to express her
viewpoints on the state of Native affairs within the United States and ways in which their
condition could be improved. Throughout her life, Zitkala-Ša worked to enhance the
Native American’s social condition, and legal, economic and cultural rights (Gottesman
877; Washburn 274). Her involvement with these organizations, the Society of American
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Indians, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Indian Welfare Committee, the
Indian Rights Association, and the National Council of American Indians all afforded her
support, exposure, and credibility. As a member of these groups, Zitkala-Ša facilitated the
advancement of Native people by educating the American public about her own and other
Native cultures, testifying in Congressional hearings in an effort to prohibit “peyote use
in Native religious ceremonies” (Washburn 289), professing Native’s entitlement to
“water rights and land claims” (Cox 182), assisting in achieving their right to vote with
the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, and helping to improve the condition
of Native education (Washburn 294).
Zitkala-Ša endured multiple aspects of marginalization in the form of racial and
gender discrimination. These unjust experiences influenced the direction of her life and
activism, from finding and developing her voice, marrying a man of her culture who
shared her values, advocating Native rights through her writings, her involvement and
leadership roles with organizations that supported Native causes, to her courageous
presence as a Native woman whose voice spoke so that all Native people would be heard.
The Marginalization of Wendy Rose
Intra-racism
Wendy Rose experienced marginalization first from within her own family. In her
poetry, autobiography and within a number of interviews she addresses the discrimination
that she went through from both her maternal and paternal sides of the family. In an
interview with Bruchac, Rose admits:
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I was in that situation where the white part of my family had absolutely no
use for any other races that came into the family . . . The Indian half is in a
situation where, among the Hopi, the clan and your identity comes through
the mother, and without the Hopi mother it doesn’t matter if your father
was fullblooded or not, you can’t be Hopi. (255)
Rose’s maternal, White part of her family was racist and intolerant of any
interracial relations or racial mixtures. In her autobiographical essay, “Neon Scars,” Rose
expresses that there was turmoil in the family because both she and her mother were halfbreeds (254-258). Rose also reveals that her mother, step-father and maternal
grandparents were overt in their neglect and disapproval of her because of her mixedblood. She states, “Alone at home . . . brother raised by grandparents. Alone. Unwatched.
Something wrong with me; everyone knows but me” (254). Rose emotes the pain and
isolation she felt from being emotionally and physically neglected by her family. She
expresses that this abandonment made her feel isolated and defective, and admits that she
felt similar feelings of exclusion from the paternal side of her family (255). Hopi Tribal
lineage is traced through the mother. Therefore, according to Hopi tradition, since Rose’s
father is Hopi she is not perceived as Hopi and cannot claim Tribal rights. In her
interview with Bruchac, Rose shares a conversation that she had with her biological
father regarding this situation. She recalls, “I was in crisis over it and saying what can I
do because I can’t be a member of a clan, because I can’t have your clan? You’re my
father not my mother, I’m not entitled to any land or any rights or any privileges on the
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reservation” (256). Rose’s words convey a sense of loss and weariness from the inability
to be completely accepted by her Hopi people.
Racially Mixed and Cast Out
While growing up, Rose felt isolated in her community in Oakland, California. In
“Neon Scars,” she discusses her feeling of aloneness, “Alone in the play yard. Alone at
Mass. Alone on the street . . . They all leave me alone. No friends. Confirmation. Patron
Francis of Assisi. He understands” (254). Rose reveals that she felt ignored and excluded
from the rest of society. She had no companions to socialize with or confide in. The only
source of solace that she could turn to was the Patron Saint Francis of Assisi. Rose’s
childhood was spent devoid of any real human connection. In an interview with Laura
Coltelli, Rose explains one of the reasons why she felt so alone and disconnected from
others:
culturally I would have to say I’m pretty urban: an urban, Pan-Indian . . .
I grew up with Indian people from all over the country, all different tribes.
Some of them had lived on reservations and some of them had spent their
whole lives in the city. I was born in Oakland, which is of course a big
city. So there was always the sense of not really being connected enough
to any one group. (123)
The ethnic diversity in Oakland was caused by two factors: (1) California is a
state that had one of the highest Native populations prior to colonization and (2) Oakland
was one of the urban locations designated by the U.S. government as part of the
Relocation Act of the 1950s, which removed Natives from the reservations and placed
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them into metropolitan areas in order to assimilate them into the greater American public.
The Natives living in this area were products of the colonization and marginalization that
had caused the desecration and displacement of their tribes. In the interview with Coltelli,
Rose states that this fragmentation of the Native community caused her to feel as if she
was “not connected enough to any one group” (123). Rose also asserts that being a “halfbreed” (122) played a major role in her experience of isolation. To make this point, she
refers to a story by Native writer James Welch. She states:
in one of his novels . . . the protagonist is asked if being a half-breed
meant that he had special insights and special privilege into both groups,
and in fact to paraphrase his answer, he said what it actually means is you
don’t have enough of either group. I can understand that; I know what he
means. (123)
The reality of being a half-breed, detached from both of her families, coupled
with growing up among other Natives that were dispersed all over the city and had
fractured histories themselves made it difficult for Rose to connect to anyone. Rose’s
condition of being a mixed-blood cast out by her own relatives, of feeling disconnected
from other Natives and her feelings of inadequacy are all examples of being marginalized
in a post-colonial nation.
Reactions from the Pressure of being placed in the Margins
Dulling the Pain
During Rose’s late teen years she began abusing drugs in order to escape the
reality of being neglected by her family and feeling isolated within her own community.
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The loneliness became too painful to deal with. She dulled her anguish with illicit
substances and dropped out of high school. Rose’s drug use became so severe that at one
point she had to be hospitalized. In “Neon Scars,” Rose recalls, “Drugs, dropping out.
Finally friends. Getting high, staying high. Very sick, hospital. No more drugs, no more
friends. Alone again” (254-255). Rose began associating with people who abused drugs
in order to have some form of connection with others even if it was destructive. This time
in her life reflects the depths of the pain she felt from being discarded by her family and
made to feel invisible by her relatives and the rest of society. Her words express that
since she did not feel as if she mattered, she did not feel worthy enough to care about
herself, her education or her health. Rose abandoned herself.
The Exploitation of the Young Native Writer
When Wendy Rose was a teenager, some of her writings, as well as those of other
young Native writers, were published without their knowledge. In an interview with
Hunter, Rose asserts that she and the other writers were used by non-Natives who were
satisfying their desire to commodify Native literature (73). Rose was a victim of a
phenomenon pointed out by Vine Deloria, Jr. in which every 20 years there is a trend
within the non-Native art world to become interested in Native art and literature. As a
result, one Native writer or artist is permitted to “make it” (73). Rose frankly admits:
because I was coming of age at the point where one fad began so that my
earliest, most tentative writings were immediately picked up (or collected,
shall we say) and published long before they should have been . . . I was
invited to do professional readings when I was still a teenager even though
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I was not producing good literature that would stand up on its own merit.
The publishers, editors, and listeners were more interested in the fact that I
was Indian than in my work . . . some publishers just printed our work
without permission on the assumption that we’d never find out . . . we
have never been paid, although the white editors have made a bundle. (73)
Rose was a casualty of a commodified culture. Scholar Gerald Vizenor discusses
the phenomenon of commodifying a culture in his article, “Socioacupuncture: Mythic
Reversals and The Striptease in Four Scenes.” According to Vizenor the Native is turned
into a commodity for the profit and entertainment of the dominant culture (413). Vizenor
points out that the colonized Native is marginalized by the fact that they are exploited.
Thus, Rose too was marginalized in the process of being exploited by the dominant
culture.
Ignorance in the Ivory Tower
Rose went from being a high school dropout to a Berkeley graduate student. As a
Ph.D. student Rose’s proposed dissertation topic was rejected by a number of
departments at Berkeley on the basis that it was not considered legitimate subject matter.
Her dissertation provided an annotated and examined bibliography of Native American
writers from the 17th through the 20th century. In her interview with Hunter, Rose admits,
“no one would touch it except anthropology” (70). Rose recalls a separate situation in
which the English Department publicly bashed Native American literature when she was
a student and an instructor at Berkeley. Rose states:
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The English Department . . . was quoted as saying, “Native American
literature is not part of American Literature” and at least one of the
professors in the English Department was advising his students not to take
my Indian Literature courses in Native American studies on the grounds
that Indians have never written anything worthwhile. (70)
These disrespectful and discriminating attitudes toward Native American
literature must have angered Rose and quite possibly provided her with the motivation to
create the works that are so influential today.
Negotiating for her People
While Rose was a student at Berkeley, she decided that anthropology did not
seem to be a field that worked in her or her people’s best interest. Rose perceived the
field as another means of colonization that extracted Indian remains and probed at Indian
people and culture in order to gain notoriety for knowledge that was not its own. Rose’s
response to this situation was to do something that would prevent this injustice:
I found that one possible role for an Indian anthropologist was to be a go
between, between Indians and government agencies, or Indians and big
business, whatever was required. I worked for a while as an unofficial
mediator between AIM, archaeologists, developers and city governments
over the issue of burial grounds. (69-70)
Rose worked in this role with the intention of making a difference for Native
people. As a representative for the American Indian Movement (AIM) she was trying to
put a stop to the desecration of Native land by conveying to the archaeologists,
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government agencies and corporations that the Natives considered this land sacred and it
should be respected. Eventually, she found this endeavor exasperating because the
archaeologists refused to negotiate with her. Rose explains:
It was an impossible situation, especially in California, because the
Indians were consistently being lied to and deceived, the archaeologists
would not accept my training in anthropology as valid because I was
aligned with AIM and not them, and it got to where there were threats on
my life. I burned out. . . . (qtd. in Hunter 70)
Rose attempted to create justice for her people, to do something that would make
up for the arrogant attitudes she had witnessed among those in positions of power and
prestige, the anthropologist, archaeologists, government bureaus and city developers who
did not have any regard for the Native culture, people or land that they examined,
exploited, despoiled and appropriated. It is understandable that Rose discontinued her
involvement given the stressful and unworkable situation. She would not re-involve
herself in these issues until a few years later, but her initiative is commendable.
The Instructor Learns a Lesson in Racism
As an instructor at California State University, Fresno, Rose experienced overt
racism from the students in the Native American Studies courses. This behavior was so
disturbing it influenced her to resign from the University and take a position at Fresno
City College. Rose informs Coltelli:
At the two-year college I find that students are much more receptive to the
Native American studies than they were at the four-year university in the
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same city, here in Fresno. At the four-year university I had students who
were calling me a squaw in class. I had students who, as I’d be walking
across campus, would yell rude things at me that would be racist in nature;
I was told not to talk about political controversy. They are among the
reasons why I left the university, and I went to the city college here.
Where I am now, some of the students have difficulties with the material
primarily because they were brought up with a very narrow focus: if it
isn’t in the Bible it can’t be true. That is the major problem, which is not
as much a problem as just plain hostility. (130-131)
It appears that Rose’s integrity did not permit her to remain in such a disrespectful
environment. It is also refreshing to know that both she and her knowledge of Native
history and culture was appreciated by the students at Fresno City College.
Advocacy through the Written and Spoken Word
Writings
Rose has responded to the discrimination that she experienced through her written
works and interviews. Within some of these works, Rose expresses how she felt about
being marginalized within her family and society. In addition, she discusses the
prejudices, arrogance, sense of entitlement and unjust treatment that she has experienced
and witnessed from the dominant White society. These experiences are what provided her
with the inspiration for her activism.
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Articles and Interviews
Rose’s articles discuss a variety of controversial issues. The article, “American
Indian Poets and Publishing,” discusses topics such as the objectification and
commodification of Native writers and their works by non-Native editors, publishers and
consumers who perceive their works as “nothing more than curios” (402). Her piece,
“Just What’s All This Fuss About Whiteshamanism Anyway?” points out that
whiteshaman’s are people who covet and possess Native spirituality and creativity, then
claim to be authorities of Native culture without regard for integrity or accuracy (16-23).
In her work, “For Some, It’s a Time of Mourning,” Rose reminds her readers that the
New World was confiscated by European colonizers who employed heinous tactics of
genocide and exploitation of the Native people and their land. To emphasize her point,
Rose unapologetically accuses George Washington of being a “rapist” (5) because of his
acts of defilement toward the Natives.
The ideas Rose shares during her interviews are equally contentious. For example,
in her interview with Coltelli, Rose comments that people of color are “left out of the
books” used in university-level courses of American history, literature and art, and that
the only people who are included are White (122). She contends:
It’s not just a cultural matter, but it’s a political matter . . . The only
possible reason it could happen is because it’s not an accident; that it’s
planned. Somebody is benefiting by having Americans ignorant about
what non-European Americans are doing and what they have done; what
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European Americans have done to them. Somebody is benefiting by
keeping people ignorant. (122)
Rose expresses strong emotions of bitterness regarding the ethnocentrism, and
exclusionary attitudes towards ethnic people. In this interview, as well as the interviews
with Bruchac and Hunter, she does not censor her opinions of the wrongs that Native or
other marginalized groups have suffered at the hands of White Americans.
Poetry
One of Rose’s compilations of poetry, The Halfbreed Chronicles and Other
Poems, deals with the issue of being a half-breed. These poems discuss variations of what
constitutes being a half-breed. Rose explains the significance of the poems within this
text in her interview with Bruchac:
Now The Halfbreed Chronicles depict a number of people, and genetics
doesn’t have a great deal to do with it . . . There are other people who are
depicted in The Halfbreed Chronicles who would not be identified as
halfbreed. People who are Japanese-American. People who are MexicanIndian but spent their lives as sideshow freaks. (255)
Rose acknowledges people who are made to feel different, abnormal, who are not
understood or accepted by others, and those who suffer abuse and discrimination as a
result of being different from the dominant culture or group—upper-middle and upper
class, heterosexual, conservative, Republican and affluent. These people are perceived to
be different as result of being of a different culture, being a mixed-blood, full-blood,
being physically deformed, or having a different political point of view. Therefore, they
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do not conform to the dominant culture or group. The poem, “Halfbreed Cry,” taken from
The Halfbreed Chronicles expresses sentiments that people who are different, who feel
disconnected from their family or society can relate to:
the tree searches its roots
for water
and I feel it
as a separation
across which I stretch
to almost touch them
turning
in the small space
of my life so distant oh
so very distant. (lines 6-15)
Rose’s words discuss a form of sustenance and substance that seem unattainable
by those who feel that they are different. As a result, there are divisions among people.
Rose affirms:
people who are genetically all Caucasian, or all black, or all Indian; people
who are genetically not of mixed race come up to me afterwards and say I
know just what you mean by those poems. I feel like a halfbreed, too. So I
know the message is getting through. We are now halfbreeds. We’re
Reagan’s halfbreeds and Dukmejian’s halfbreeds. (qtd. in Bruchac 255256)
88
Rose took her experience of being a half-breed and expanded its meaning and
significance so that she could reach those who feel inferior or excluded.
According to Jaskoski, the concept of a pan-Indian identity is also expressed in
The Halfbreed Chronicles in the poem, “Wounded Knee: 1890-1973.” Jaskoski contends
that the persona of the poem identifies with all of the people who were a part of the siege
that took place in 1973 when AIM occupied the Wounded Knee site in order to demand
treaty and legal rights for Native Americans. The following excerpt of the poem provided
by Jaskoski reveals a common sense of defenselessness: “they shoot / at me / at all my
relations.” Rose’s perspective of the relational aspect of self-definition is conveyed in the
phrase, “all my relations” (263).
As a self-proclaimed “Indian feminist” (Rose as qtd. in Hunter 80) some of
Rose’s poetry reveals a sense of female self-empowerment as in the poem, “The Parts of
a Poet,” taken from the text, Bone Dance which is exhibited in the following excerpt:
Loving
the pottery goodness
of my body [. . .]
parts of me are pinned
to the earth [. . .] parts
of me spread on the water,
parts of me form a rainbow
bridge, [. . . .] (lines 1-12)
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Her words convey a sense of self-love and a connection to the earth and nature,
which is expressed in a self-affirming tone. Rose’s poetry also exemplifies bell hooks’
utilization of marginality as a site of resistance in that she is able share the experiences
of the marginalized from a holistic perspective, which reveals both the adversity they
have faced and their determination to overcome it.
A Union with a Familiar Soul
Rose’s marriage with Arthur Murata appears to be a comfortable relationship, one
in which a mutual understanding exists because both come from cultures that have
similar histories in that their people experienced prejudice and mistreatment by the
American government and Anglo society. In her interview with Coltelli, Rose admits that
at one point both she and Arthur experienced racism from some of their non-Indian
friends. Rose explains:
all of a sudden the fact of me being Indian became too much for them to
bear, and suddenly it just became a big issue with them. And similarly
with Arthur, my husband, who is Japanese-American, same thing. His
being Japanese-American suddenly became too much for them and they
began acting in a racist way toward us, and we thought they were our
friends. (qtd. in Coltelli 126)
In an effort to make sense of the incident, Rose made a public response. In her
reply she asserts, “Certainly individuals can cross the line, or can live on the line. I guess
what happens is they live on the line, rather than trying to cross from one into another
culture territory” (qtd. in Coltelli 126). Rose admits that she made this comment as a
90
result of the sense of betrayal she felt toward their friends (126). She explains that she
and Arthur “were both feeling pretty bitter about what had happened at that point” (126).
Rose and Arthur can relate to one another’s experience of isolation and exclusion as a
result of their ethnicities. Today, after more than thirty years of marriage, they continue
to support each other and provide one another solace.
Directing the course of Native Knowledge through Professionalism and
Activism
Rose’s experiences with marginalization influenced her professional life and
activism. She has served in many positions that have been outlets for advocating respect
for Native rights, knowledge, culture, literature, and life ways. She has been inspiring and
influential in her role as a researcher, instructor, writer, and activist and as a member of
several organizations, including the American Indian Movement, the Native American
Writers Association, the Poets and Writers Organization, the Poets, Playwrights, Essayist,
Editors and Novelist Organization, the California Indian Education Association, and the
American Federation of Teachers (“Wendy Rose”). Perhaps one of Rose’s most
important responsibilities was when she was an instructor and head of the American
Indian Studies Program at Fresno City College where she was in charge of the direction
and development of the program. In addition, Rose became a role model for Native
students and educators by fulfilling a personal goal, the “hope that there will continue to
be some kind of program where Indian people will be doing the teaching” (qtd. in Coltelli
130). She was able to share her cultural and political views from a Native perspective,
from a place of authenticity with integrity and respect for her people.
91
Wendy Rose experienced various forms of racial discrimination throughout her
life. In her young life, this cruelty became the cause of such emotional and psychological
pain that she began abusing drugs in order to numb this dis-ease. After undergoing a
period of recovery, Rose began to respond to her emotional wounds in more creative and
constructive ways. Her poetry was one of the first mediums in which she discussed issues
of intolerance. Aligning herself with AIM during the 1970’s and pursuing her education
were additional means, which allowed her to become influential. Rose’s determination to
right the wrongs that she experienced and observed others suffer motivated her to make
an impact. Within Rose’s writings and interviews she advocates not only for the rights of
Native people but for all people who have been ignored, exploited, demeaned, and made
to feel inferior. The injustice that Rose endured influenced both her personal and
professional choices, from marrying a man who shared similar experiences of cultural
bias, to becoming an instructor, being a member of a number of organizations that
influence the construction and decimation of knowledge of Native and non-Native
people, and creative and academic writings, to becoming the director of the American
Indian Studies Program at Fresno City College. Rose has spent her life advocating for the
rights of people, both Native and non-Native, who have been pushed to the edges of
society so that they can be acknowledged, so that they can have justice.
Comparative Analysis Questions and Findings:
(1) In what ways are Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose similar and different ethnically?
Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose are similar ethnically in that they are both of mixedblood ancestry. Zitkala-Ša was Dakota Sioux and Anglo. Wendy Rose is Hopi/Miwok
92
and English, German, Irish, and Scottish. They are different in that Rose has two Native
mixtures whereas Zitkala-Ša had only one. In addition, their tribes come from different
regions of the nation, Zitkala-Ša’s tribe are a people that reside in south-central South
Dakota (Washburn 271), while Rose’s Hopi relatives are located in north-eastern Arizona
and her Miwok ancestors are from northern California.
(2) How were Zitkala-Ša’s and Wendy Rose’s experiences with marginalization
similar and different?
As detailed in the analysis section, Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose were marginalized
because of their identities. As a result, they both felt isolated throughout their
adolescence within their families, school, and society. Their sense of isolation continued
throughout their adult lives. Throughout their professional careers their identity,
principles, written works and activism have been challenged.
Their experiences with marginalization were different since they lived during
different eras, the degree and manner in which they experienced marginalization varied.
Zitkala-Ša lived during the Colonial, Post-Colonial and American Progressive eras—
points in time, which according to Olson and Wilson occurred in the early 1900’s in
which people of the middle and professional classes sought democracy and equality in
the economic, political and social spheres (79). During these eras people were more apt to
express overt forms of racial bias. In contrast, Rose has lived during the Modern era—a
period beginning at the turn of the 20th century, which according to Holm was marked by
conservatism, environmentalism and collective world order (53); therefore, the
discrimination she experienced was exhibited mostly in covert ways. In terms of being
93
neglected by their families, Zitkala-Ša experienced this only after she began attending
Anglo American schools. Rose, on the other hand, experienced this since birth.
(3) What were the similarities and differences in the way marginalization impacted
their personal and professional lives and activism?
Marginalization influenced their lives in both similar and dissimilar ways.
Zitkala-Ša’s health suffered as a result of the callous treatment she endured. As noted in
the analysis section, she became depressed and physically ill. This illness “would remain
with her throughout her life” (Welch 37). Rose also became unwell as a result of her
distressing experiences, however, in another manner in that she began abusing drugs.
Both women chose partners who shared their values and supported their work. Both were
feminists, became educators, executed their activism in their written works, and were
involved in various organizations that furthered Native causes. In addition, both
supported a pan-Indian identity, which includes individuals of mixed-blood heritage and
unifies Native peoples and their efforts. Wendy Rose completely embraces the concept of
pan-Indianism and accepts her mixed-blood status, to the point of calling herself a halfbreed. In contrast, although Zitkala-Ša accepted mixed-blood heritage within others she
did not accept nor acknowledge it within herself.
Zitkala-Ša never abused any substance in order to numb her pain. In fact, she was
against any substance that altered one’s mind. Zitkala-Ša decided to marry of her same
ethnicity and culture. In contrast, Rose’s husband is not of her same ethnicity or culture.
Zitkala-Ša lived during a more conservative time; consequently her writings were often
very proper in language. She was outspoken for her time, but she commonly used
94
discretion in her opinions. Since we are in contemporary times, the ability to express
radical perspectives has become more accepted. Therefore, Rose’s views have been very
direct and uncensored. Finally, Zitkala-Ša’s activism primarily focused on Native
cultural, and religious, civil and legal rights, and their social well being. In addition, she
advocated for Tribal enrollment rights for Sioux people whether they lived on or off the
reservation. This reflects the situation in which she and her husband found themselves—
they were Siouxs who had assimilated into Anglo society, but wanted to be
acknowledged as enrolled members of their tribe and receive the benefits that came with
that status. On the other hand, Rose has advocated for both Native and non-Native rights.
She eventually expanded her perception of those who are victims of marginalization. She
recognized that all people regardless of their race are susceptible to marginalization if
they are a different color, have a different culture, have a disability or have different
political perspectives. This affects us all.
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CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION
The purpose of this research was to determine if Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose were
marginalized. Based on the data from the literature this research proved my hypothesis,
that they were in fact marginalized. Although these women were subjected to
marginalization they refused to be victims, instead they utilized marginality as a site of
resistance, which as bell hooks argues, enables the marginalized to empower oneself and
“offers the possibility of radical perspectives from which to see and create” (“Marginality
as Site of Resistance” 341). Zitkala-Ša demonstrates marginality as a site of resistance in
her editorial “Address by the Secretary-Treasurer” as she encourages the radical
perspective of affirming the value of Native people and culture and urges Natives to be
“proud” of their heritage (214). Rose utilizes marginality as a site of resistance in her
text, The Halfbreed Chronicles, as she introduces the radical perspective of asserting and
acknowledging Native and half-breed identities. By claiming theirs and others
marginality they repositioned the marginalized from the background to the forefront of
society. In addition, although Zitkala-Ša, Rose and their cultures were subjected to
commidification—a phenomenon that plagues Native people as Vizenor points in his
article, “Socioacupuncture.” Yet, they were able to overcome their own commodification
by utilizing their commodified positions as platforms to convey their messages. For
example, Washburn and Welch maintain that Zitkala-Ša dressed in her Native attire to
her violin performances and to the senate hearings where she provided testimony
opposing peyote (280; 45). This was a very strategic move indeed in that Zitkala-Ša was
able to accomplish two goals: (1) she pleased her audience by giving them their
96
romanticized Native image and persona, and (2) she created exposure for herself and
expressed her political views regarding peyote use. In Rose’s interview with Hunter, she
asserts that Native and other “exploited” people are all just ‘dancing for the whiteman’
(74). However, Rose used her commodified condition to her advantage by entertaining
the dominant White culture with her poetry, while maintaining her integrity and
communicating her personal, political and social perspectives at the same time.
All three research questions were answered, showing that they both experienced
marginalization even though they were women who lived in different eras. This finding
reveals that marginalization continues to occur.
Since the research in the area on the marginalization of Native American women is
sparse, further research should be performed that examines: If Native women who use
marginalization as Zitkala-Ša and Wendy Rose as a site of resistance feel that they are
making an impact?, Do they feel that they have sacrificed or are sacrificing time spent
with their family and loved ones in order to fulfill their professional roles and pursuits in
activism? and If they were to have an opportunity to redo the course of their personal and
professional lives and activism what would they do differently? These Native American
activist’s experiences with marginalization motivated them to share their experiences
with others and to speak out against oppression and discrimination so that others would
not fall victims to it. Whether their efforts have at times created incremental or large scale
changes, they have made a difference for those who are marginalized.
97
APPENDIX A PERMISSIONS
Dear Dina,
We received your request dated 6/03/2010 requesting permission to include lines
from the poem "A Ballad" from Dreams and Thunder by Zitkala-Ša and material from
"Zitkala-Sa: A Bridge between Two Worlds" by Franci Washburn in Their Own Frontier:
Women Intellectuals Re-Visioning the American Westedited by Shirley A. Lecknie and
Nancy J. Parezo in your thesis.
Permission is granted for you to include the requested materials. We ask that you use
the following credit line for "A Ballad": “Reprinted from Dreams and Thunder by
Zitkala-Ša by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright © 2001 by the
University of Nebraska Press.” And the following credit line for the material from Their
Own Frontier: “Reprinted from ‘Zitkala-Sa: A Bridge between Two Worlds' by Franci
Washburn in Their Own Frontier: Women Intellectuals Re-Visioning the American
Westedited by Shirley A. Lecknie and Nancy J. Parezo by permission of the University of
Nebraska Press. Copyright © 2008 by the Board and Regents of the University of
Nebraska.” Permission is granted for use of these materials by the National Library for
reproduction, loan, distribution, or sale of copies of the thesis in a print and electronic
format. Reproduction or use other than in your thesis is not included with this
permission.
98
We wish you success with your thesis.
Sincerely,
Leif Milliken
Rights and Permissions
Phone: 402.472.7702
fax: 402.472.0308
e-mail: [email protected]
Visit the University of Nebraska Press website at nebraskapress.unl.edu
-----Leif Milliken
Rights and Contracts
University Press
[email protected]
(402)472-7702
99
Hi again, Dina. . . .
The paper sounds really interesting & I am flattered to be compared in any way to
Zitkala Sa, a real (oh the irony!) "pioneer". . . .
I don't think you need to go to the publishers for permission; I retain the rights to
individual poems (as opposed to the collection of poems). You have my permission and
my congratulations for what appears to be an excellent work in progress. If it is not too
much trouble, would you send me a copy of the paper & let me know how it went with
your professor? Thank you for reading my work & using it for your paper. Good
thoughts, Wendy Rose. . . .
100
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