Class Blog Contributions by Brenda Gonzalez

Selected Readings

Week 3 Assignment Tommy Pico and Daniel H. Justice Why Indigenous Literatures Matter: Chapter two

One main theme that stood out in this week's readings was a rejection of binaries and boundaries through love and kinship. The readings reminded me that existing within a settler-colonial society means not only existing within borders, but also social binaries that police the way that people love. To willingly choose to believe and live outside these colonial binaries means to reject and resist a colonial and capitalistic way of thinking and existing. In Chapter 2 of Why Indigenous Literature Matters, the word "kin" was described as "a wild category that people try to domesticate," meaning that relationship and connectedness is meant to be limitless and expansive to all life forms. It should be about the relationships that are created and cultivated meaningfully, not as something reserved to a specific group of people. I like the way that this chapter reminded us that kinship and love are not easy, but actually very "contradictory, complicated, messy" and nevertheless are a "legacy" and "birthright" (Justice ch.2). Another thing that stood out was how intimate relationships are between Indigenous peoples and their land and the life on it. Society has often reduced Indigenous practices and beliefs as being too excessive, too spiritual or too sacred. Pico is rejecting a relationship with nature as society sees it. He says, "I hate nature"..."to my audience" but to himself he says, "I don't hate nature at all. Places have thoughts --hills have backs that love" (Pico). Rather than minimizing his beliefs, I believe he is protecting them from the narrowness of a colonial and capitalistic mindset that says in order to be a productive member of society you must distance yourself from your connectedness to the living things that surround us, that you must distance yourself from feeling and from building meaningful connections. Rather, Pico keeps this relationship as an intimate rejection of these boundaries. I am interested in the ways that this theme of rejecting binaries of living and loving works as a direct demonstration of kinship.

Week 4 assignment Marrow Thieves and Why Indigenous Literature Matter Ch. 3

Some connections that I made between the Marrow Thieves and Why Indigenous Literature Matter was the importance of dreams in relation to humanness. Dreams are connected to our bodies. They are encoded within our DNA. They are among the many things that make us human. Dreams are as vital to us as any other part of our bodies. It is with our dreams that we can hold memories and tell stories to pass on through generations. It is through dreams that a sense of place and belonging can be found, where continuity can be found. For Indigenous peoples, dreams become sites of remembering the past and envisioning the future. Dreamless-ness being a plague, where to be dreamless is to create a disruption in continuity. It was also important to understand the ways that Indigenous cultures actively contradict settler-colonial ideas, where Indigenous cultures value those things that connect us to our humanity, the way dreaming does. Settler-colonial ideas distance us from those things that make us human. They also distance us from accountability to each other and all other life forms, and distance Indigenous peoples from their obligation to kinship. The Marrow Thieves as a piece of speculative fiction allows for possibilities that do not conform to a reducing narrative that work to erase Indigenous peoples, one which is not bound by "reality,” creating a sense of possibility for the future and a sense of having a past. One quote that stood out to me from Why Indigenous Literature Matters was, “There is the crushing weight of possibility unrealized, of what might have been” (page 115). It is within envisioning a better future and creating new possibilities that cultural continuity and a sense of place are found.

Week 6 Assignment Marrow Thieves (end) and selected poem

In the Marrow Thieves, Dimaline explores the idea of returning home. And this became clear as the novel ended. Home is where you carry your heart and your dreams. It is in this pursuit of a home that kept all the characters going, despite all the pain and loss in the process. It is in this ending that we see French’s sense of home had changed, that his home was with his love for Rose. It was French’s father who pushed him to follow his dreams and this sense of home by reminding him of his mother’s words, “Running only works if you’re moving towards something. Not away”. And we are reminded of this responsibility that each character has to keep each other dreaming. Miig’s idea of home was in his love for Isaac, and he carried that love around his neck in a bundle as a tangible reminder of that. He carried it as his own heart because to have it inside his own chest would be too dangerous. When it seemed that Miig was losing hope of finding Isaac, he let French carry his bundle. We then see French’s role transition in the story, as he not only discovers that he has a new sense of home of which to pursue, but in that process he also takes on the role of a dreamer in the story someone who understands the meaning of dreams, as he comes to understand the significance of the bundle, the endless hope and deep love that Miig has for Issac. It was somehow symbolic that it was French who found Isaac, and took role in carrying a piece of that dream. It was in the moment that Miig and Isaac reunited that French realized, “…as long as there were dreamers left there would never be want for a dream.” And we are reminded that what held everyone together was the fact that they carried their dreams like they carried a light of life, to turn off that light would be to let each other die. This has reminded me of the way we talked about salmon finding their way home after so long. It reminded me about circularity, continuity, blood memory, and how love, dreams, and pain are carried within people and passed through generations, despite the loss and destruction. In spite of it all, there is an innate need to keep dreaming and to keep pursuing a home. This also reminds me of the poem “Linear Process,” by Gwen Westerman. It opens with, “Our elders say the universe is a circle. Everything returns to its beginnings.” This poem follows the theme of having an inherent sense of trust, knowing, and security that life is connected and circular, even among loss and the uncertainty of not knowing a past and present. It is this sense of circularity, connectedness, and belonging that keeps everyone going.

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© Copyright Brenda Gonzalez, 2019