Native American Literature and the Intricacies of its Recognition

Abstract

During the second half of the twentieth century mainstream white American approach to ethnic and minority writers changed considerably. Different writers that had been ignored due to racial prejudice started to make an impact upon the mainstream American readership. Among these groups of ethnic writers that arose during the times, different Native American writers emerged who led to opening up the mainstream perception towards literature to the effect that Native American literature that had been denied a respectful status earned it in the American academia. However, the emergence of Native American literature in the mainstream literary circles was not eulogized by all the indigenous scholars. These scholars argued in favour of seeing the heterogeneity of Native literatures besides realizing their continuity from the past when these literatures had been denied any value and significance. For centuries indigenous peoples had produced oral literatures that kept on changing and adapting to help the indigenous people survive and sustain their identity despite ideological and intellectual oppression exerted by the white immigrants. These oral literatures later on provided the aesthetic base for the Natives in their endeavour of producing literatures in written form. In comparison, literature produced by the early immigrants and later on by mainstream white American writers primarily relied upon the non existence of the Native people and their aesthetics. Indigenous peoples portrayed through the white narratives obliterated the true Native and instead created a homogenized caricature figure that was meant to serve the purpose of the white American rather than represent the diversity and richness of the Indigenous cultures. These caricature figures helped the white immigrants to justify the displacement of Natives from the American land and also certify their genocide by the whites as a noble endeavour. In this context, recognition of Native American literature in the white literary circles was interpreted by these scholars as another example of colonial appropriation. Therefore, with their reintegration in the sixties and afterwards, many Native scholars indulged in a process of redefinition thereby producing valuable insights that have helped the readers to better understand the intricate relationship between the mainstream and indigenous literatures. These scholars contest the very meaning of literature and elaborate the inherent problems in homogenizing heterogeneous indigenous literatures as “Indian literature”.