Native Literature and the American Southwest

A Conversation with Vine Deloria, Jr.

Native Literature and the American Southwest

I watched a video called, A Conversation with Vine Deloria, Jr., on Native Literature and the American Southwest. The interview was conducted by Geri Keams, Steve Crum, and Steve Nelson. Vine Victor Deloria, Jr. was an American Indian author, theologian, historian, and activist. Most people believe that American Indian literature was a discovery of the late 1960s. Deloria suggests that our interest in Native Americans runs in twenty-year, generational cycles. What are they, and why, what was the public climate? Through his comments we can begin to understand Native American literary history.

First, Geri Keams asked “Who do you write for? Do you feel you write for Indian people or do you feel you write for non-Indian people?” Vine Deloria, Jr., explained that book contracts are given when the publisher thinks it is a commercial book, which means that it will sell in New York City. New York City sells a quarter of the books sold in this country annually. If you write from a Western perspective you will think that readers know certain things. But, when that manuscript gets to New York the editors change it. When he wrote articles for the New York Times from an Indian perspective, a majority of it was taken out. The publisher alters it to appeal to a nebulous audience. But, you are not able to change that. So, you choose between picking your audience and saying what you want or getting published.

Next, Geri Keams asked, “So how do you feel personally about the impact of your writing?” Vine Deloria, Jr., spoke on how most writing on Indians is done by non-Indians from the East. Over the century, there is an interest in Indians about every 20 years, where a few Indian writers come about. They will publish a few books or articles, and then a non-Indian expert starts writing. Then you get about 18 years of white fantasies about Indians and two years of actual Indian writings. When Indians ask for recognition of values it is upsetting to white culture, they do not like hearing the Indian viewpoint. He wished that he attacked the fundamental beliefs of the white world view and brought Indians in a different way.

Then, Steve Nelson asked, “Do you think that this problem with the editor as far as him cutting out the guts of your article, do you think that that discourages other Indian writers?” Vine Deloria, Jr., replied that Indian writers are discouraged by the way publishers only let a few people from each minority group be recognized at a time. Minority groups are outside white culture, and at certain points the whites think they should feel guilty over something. Then they choose a minority group, and hear them out. So, minority groups who waited twenty years to say what was done to them and how they want to be compensated for it, speak out. Then all they get in response from the white society is an apology.

Lastly, Steve Crum asked, “Could you suggest certain academic areas that the children who are growing up now might be able to go into during this interim period?” Vine Deloria, Jr., responded by saying that history is the most important. He said you need new interpretations of oral history. In school world history that starts in Egypt and then in 1492, come the Indians. So, whites do not understand this group. So we need heretical thinkers to break up the evolutionary explanation of human knowledge. In Supreme Court cases you see taking of Indian lands on the basis that Indians are hunters and should give their land to white farmers. It is the order of nature, thus, you do not need to argue legal rights. If people are trained in evolutionary thinking they will look at Indians as a prior state of existence and see their own culture as superior. So we must use the ecological movement and new theories of history to stop that mindset. It will require creative thinking.

http://parentseyes.arizona.edu/wordsandplace/deloria_comments.html