Resistance and Continuance through Cultural Connections in Simon J. Ortiz's Out There Somewhere

Abstract

from their tribal homelands speaks to those who are urban natives, which is over two-thirds of the native population in the United States: those natives who have left the reservation for economic rea sons; those native tribes who have no land base; those natives who have no federal recognition as official native tribes; and those natives who for reasons of patrilineal or matrilineal descent have no tribal affiliation. Although they are out there somewhere, they continue to be native, as Ortiz so deftly demonstrates. A political thread runs through Ortiz's earlier poetry collections, and this essay looks at a few of the poems in Out There Somewhere to see how this literature of resistance continues through cultural connections. In the preface to Out There Somewhere Ortiz writes, Yet at the same time that we are away, we also continue to be absolutely con