On the complex, challenging, and vital
cross-cultural perspective of one of America’s most unique women and voices.
In one of my
earliest blog posts, I wrote about journalist and anti-lynching activist Ida
B. Wells (Barnett), calling her “A Voice from the Nadir.” I wanted that
title to sum up two seemingly distinct and eve opposed yet in fact
interconnected and mutually dependent ideas, not only about Wells but about
inspiring Americans more generally: that from the darkest moments in our
histories (such
as was the turn of the 20th century “nadir” for African Americans)
often emerge the brightest and most inspiring lights. “Yet the shadows bear the
promise/Of a brighter coming day,” wrote Frances
Ellen Watkins Harper during this same era; and as I argued in that Black
History Month post on Harper, I believe—and am
arguing in the book I’m hoping to finish this coming summer and fall—those
lines means precisely that it is in the shadows that we must find the light, to
the darkest histories that we must turn in search of hard-won hope.
While many
historical periods could vie for the title of nadir when it comes to Native
Americans, I think the 19th century’s last few decades likewise have
a very strong case: the “Indian
Wars” were culminating with the final and complete defeat of all remaining
independent nations; the removal and reservation systems were concurrently
enveloping every nation more and more fully (with even the
well-intentioned Dawes Act playing into
those trends); and, perhaps most egregiously, the
system of “Indian boarding schools” was taking young Native Americans away
from their communities and trying to force cultural assimilation and the loss
of heritage on them. It was in direct response to and representation of those
trends, and particularly the destructive boarding school experience, that Sioux author
Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin) emerged onto the national literary
scene, with autobiographical pieces such as “Impressions of an Indian
Childhood” and “School Days of an Indian Girl” (both published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1900); since most of
us American Studiers still encounter Sa through those works in anthologies (as
I did), it’s easy to define her through them, and thus to see her as a complex
and talented chronicler of this nadir period for her community and culture.
Yet the
individual perspective that comes through in those pieces, and even more in 1902’s
“Why I Am a Pagan” (also published in the Atlantic),
is that of someone who will not be defined, and certainly not limited, by any
single experience or category. And indeed Sa spent the next few decades
extending her career and activism in a variety of compelling and significant
ways: compiling, editing, and publishing Old Indian Legends (1901), a
collection of Native folktales and stories; working with composer William
Hanson to write and stage The Sun Dance Opera (1913), one of
the most unique and pioneering works in American cultural history; and founding
(in 1926) and serving as the first president of the
National Council of American Indians, an influential political and social
organization that lobbied on behalf of Native American rights and citizenship
throughout the 20th century. In these and many other efforts, Sa
illustrated just how fully she had transcended the depths of the nadir, and
exemplified the potential for all cultures and communities—and, most
importantly, for America itself—to similarly find hope for a stronger future:
in our histories, in our cultures, and in our most inspiring identities.
Final
Cross-Cultural Day nomination tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Thoughts,
responses, or other Cross-Cultural Day nominations for the weekend post?
10/11 Memory Day nominee: Eleanor
Roosevelt!
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