Showing posts with label Race to the Sun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Race to the Sun. Show all posts

Saturday, January 18, 2020

NOT RECOMMENDED: Rebecca Roanhorse's RACE TO THE SUN. A review essay by Michael Thompson (Muscogee Creek)

With his permission, American Indians in Children's Literature is publishing Michael Thompson's essay about Rebecca Roanhorse's middle grade novel, Race to the Sun, published in 2020 by Disney Hyperion in the Rick Riordan Presents imprint. Thompson is a citizen of the Muscogee Creek Nation and taught high school in Farmington, New Mexico. He does not recommend Roanhorse's book. 


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NOT RECOMMENDED: Rebecca Roanhorse's Race to the Sun



What will Rebecca Roanhorse's Race to the Sun 
contribute to our understanding of the Native world it portrays?
Review essay by Michael Thompson (Muscogee Creek)

When Rebecca Roanhorse published her dystopian fantasy novel Trail of Lightning, I wrote at length about my grave concerns for her appropriation and distortions of Dine’ cultural narratives. I noted, as a Native educator and a Navajo in-law, that numerous Navajo writers were voicing similar objections, many of which are archived at Debbie Reese’s important website (AICL).

Now that Roanhorse has published a YA novel, Race to the Sun, my concerns remain unchanged, and arguably the stakes are even higher, as this book is likely to reach a much larger audience of younger readers, who are both Native and non-Native.

Although my primary conflict with RTTS is its failure to observe traditional boundaries that normally protect cultural narratives from appropriation, I will note briefly that there are some unusually problematic internal inconsistencies in the narrative and in some characterization.

For example, are we really to think that a young Navajo woman who has undergone her kinaalda is clueless at solving the riddle of what “four mountains bind you to your home”? Or that her father, a man who’d married a woman whose secret identity was supposedly a monsterslayer, would be seeking to work for a major oil and gas company that is being protested by Native people for its pipeline?

Moreover, there are some elements that are jarringly inconsistent with actual Navajo life and culture – the six stanza riddle that sets the quest seems straight out of European folklore, as does the plot structure that is clearly derived from classic stages of the hero’s journey, as well as the book and the sword that are among the monster slaying weapons provided by the Sun. And finally, I could barely believe that the climactic battle at Tse’Bit’Ai’ actually included Spider Woman dressed much like the Marvel superhero and casting a life-saving web. Clearly, the author feels free to mix and match whatever cultural/literary elements suit her fancy. This is opportunism on a grand scale.

Yet the greatest problem here is a simple one. Roanhorse must know that some traditional Navajo people consider her use of sacred figures and practices profoundly inappropriate. Those objections are well-documented.

She just doesn’t care.

Years ago I wrote an article for Tribal College Journal about the importance of the oral tradition in tribal college classrooms. I spoke with several Native scholars and instructors in researching that piece. One of the most significant personal conclusions I came to was this: as place-based, earth-based, community based cultures, tribal people honor the story of the group, its history and values and beauty, above the imagination of the solitary artist.

And I might add that the most important stories are often seen as belonging to the group, not to an individual to do with as he or she pleases. When I was first given a few traditional songs to learn to sing in ceremony, I was told this by my teachers: don’t add anything, don’t change anything, don’t take anything away.

That’s how it is possible to keep cultural knowledge intact for thousands of years.

For many traditional Native people, our origin stories, our ceremonial songs and teachings – passed down from our ancestors for centuries -- have a deeply sacred aspect, which in turn has made possible our cultural survival.

I am well aware that many people, maybe even a majority of Native people, consider the objections I am making inconsequential. So be it.

But there are at least some Native people I know who believe that we must always push back against anything that would diminish our origin stories, our worldviews. That means, among other things, protecting our stories as they were handed down to us.

As an educator, one of the most important questions I would ever ask about any work categorized as Native literature is this: what will it contribute to our understanding of the Native world it portrays?

When I consider Race to the Sun, I find almost nothing of real value to deepen one’s understanding of actual Navajo teachings but rather a mishmash of coming of age tropes from various non-Native cultures and from popular American culture, sprinkled with just enough familiar Navajo elements (hogans, Navajo tacos, geographic icons, and the like) to label it a Navajo story. No doubt there is a great deal of currency in mainstream readership for doing this. But there is little here to educate young Navajo or non-Navajo readers about the real meaning of the Dine’ narratives’ actual Holy People or the complex principles on which they are based.

The literature that Roanhorse makes uses a kind of cultural costumery and caricature. She takes characters and iconic landmarks from a rich, interconnected set of sacred Navajo stories, which have profound significance within that context, and she uses them as plastic action figures and dramatic settings to spin out whatever pop culture genre she likes, without any real regard for the actual gravity that traditional Navajo people would attach to them.

This is cultural reductionism, plain and simple.

Spider Woman, for the Dine’, does not belong in the Marvel universe, however many books that may sell. She belongs exactly where she has always been -- in the Dine’ universe – with beauty all around her.


Monday, October 21, 2019

A First Look at Roanhorse's RACE TO THE SUN

In July of 2019, I received an ARC (advanced reader copy) of Rebecca Roanhorse's Race to the Sun. I did a short twitter thread as I looked it over. Below is that thread, with some light editing to the original tweets, for clarity. I assume that Roanhorse and Riordan, too, read my thread and that edits to the ARC will be made before the final printing of Race to the Sun.  The book is due out in 2020.


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I have an ARC of Roanhorse's RACE TO THE SUN.

I was wrong to recommend her TRAIL OF LIGHTNING. Details: Concerns about Roanhorse's TRAIL OF LIGHTNING.

RACE TO THE SUN is in Rick Riordan's "Rick Riordan Presents" series. His use of his fame to launch writers of color is terrific. I haven't read the other book in Riordan's series.

His intro for RACE TO THE SUN is titled "The Original American Gods." That's a problem, for sure. His problematic intro looks like this:
THE ORIGINAL AMERICAN GODS
Changing Woman. Rock Crystal Boy. The Glittering World. The Hero Twins.
Do you see why that's not ok? "Original American" erases the fact that the Diné people pre-date America.

Indigenous peoples weren't "Original Americans."

They weren't "First Americans" either.

They were people of their own unique nations, all of which pre-date the United States. 


Moving from Riordan's intro to the book itself, I am pretty sure the Diné Writers Collective would say no to it, immediately. In their Open Letter, they state that Roanhorse appropriated Diné culture when she wrote TRAIL OF LIGHTNING. But they are also concerned with the content. They write that
Roanhorse often mischaracterizes and misrepresents Diné spiritual beliefs.
and,
Roanhorse turns deities into caricatures.

They reference others who have appropriated and misrepresented Diné beliefs, including Tony Hillerman, Oliver LaFarge, and Scott O'Dell. 

And they write that 
We are concerned that this book attempts to convert our true ancestral teachings into myth and legend.
Upthread, I linked to the Diné Writers Collective letter. I hope you go read the entire letter.

It is signed by Esther Belin, Sherwin Bitsui, Chee Brossy, Dr. Jennifer Denetdale, Tina Deschenie, Jacqueline Keeler, Dr. Lloyd Lee, Manny Loley, Jaclyn Roessel, 
Roanna Shebala, Jake Skeets, Dr. Laura Tohe, Luci Tapahonso, and Orlando White. 

In her Author's Note for RACE TO THE SUN, Roanhorse writes
I am just a writer of fantasy, not a culture keeper or scholar. This book should not be taken for a cultural text.
That is an icky, not-my-fault disclaimer because it echoes what Whiteness says (by "Whiteness" I mean white writers who argue that what they do in fiction doesn't have to be accurate because everybody knows that fiction isn't real. That is a disingenuous defense, no matter who says it.) 

In that note, she also thanks Riordan for allowing her to:
...share some of what I know of the beauty of the Navajo culture with Navajo readers and the rest of the world.
That kind of clashes with what she said, earlier (about the book not being a cultural text). First she says not to read the book as a cultural text, but then she says she's glad to share what she knows about Navajo culture.

How are readers going to know which parts are fantasy and which are not?


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I am currently reading Race to the Sun, making notes as I do. So far, I've met the main character. She is a Diné girl named Nizhoni who can see monsters. Because of that power, the monster she sees in the opening chapters tells her that it has to kill her.

But, a small stuffed horned toad on her shelf speaks to her, telling her she has to slay that monster. To do that she has to go to the Glittering World where she will meet the Sun, who is also known as The Merciless One, and who will give her the tools she needs to kill that monster. 

Clearly, Roanhorse is using Navajo stories to create the characters in Race to the Sun. As such, people in the Diné Writers Collective will see this as appropriation. Would the Diné Writers view these characters as caricatures?

When I finish reading and thinking about the book, I will be back with a link to the review.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

The Exquisite Book Cover for Rebecca Roanhorse's TRAIL OF LIGHTNING

Editors note, Oct 1, 2018: Please see Concerns about Roanhorse's Trail of Lightning, dated August 9, 2018.

Books by Native writers have given me moments where a phrase so perfectly reflects my experience, that I exclaim aloud, with joy, 'YES!' Illustrations can do that, too, and once in a great while, a book cover will have that effect.

Last week, Barnes and Noble did the cover reveal for Rebecca Roanhorse's Trail of Lightning. Rebecca is Ohkay Owingeh (the tribal nation my mom is from) and African American. When I saw the cover, my heart swelled. I wanted everyone in my Native networks to see it! The art is by Tommy Arnold.

So, I shared it widely and others did, too. It had the same kind of impact on Native people. Tiffany Midge, for example, said she wanted to make it into a poster. Tiffany is Hunkpapa Lakota. She's a writer, too. Look for her in #NotYourPrincess. Pernell Thomas is Navajo. On Twitter, he said:
This! This! This! Seeing a powerful Diné woman on the cover of a book like this is so inspirational and life changing. I can't help but think how many young Diné children will be empowered by this imagery. The ké ntsaaí!!! 😍 ahxé'héé

Trail of Lightning isn't a book for kids but I have no doubt that they'll see teens and parents reading it. And feel empowered. Some of you may be wondering why we're having this reaction. We all probably see the power that the lightning imparts, but some of us saw Maggie's mocs. Some of us saw the truck we (or someone in our family) drives on the reservation. But there are things that are not there that make the cover powerful in other ways.


Book covers that have Native women on them are usually books that are set in the past. They're written by people who aren't Native and profess to love Native people, but that ultimately don't understand the distinctions that exist amongst the hundreds of Native Nations in the U.S. and Canada. The default illustration of a Native woman, then, includes feathers, braids, fringed clothing, and a tipi, horse, and maybe a buffalo. All of that is possible for one nation--but certainly not for all of us.

In other words, Maggie is so empowering to us because she's real. She is not a stereotype. The cover is exquisite because it speaks to us as people of the present day, and as readers who want to see our selves reflected on book covers. In 2019, Native children will be able to buy Rebecca's Race to the Sun. It will be published in the Rick Riordan Presents series. Its main character is a seventh grade Navajo girl named Nizhoni Begay.

Trail of Lightning will be available on June 26, 2018. Pre-order it! It is being published by Saga Press, which is an imprint of Simon and Schuster. In the meantime, read the Q&A at Barnes and Noble, and follow Rebecca on Twitter.

The phrase, "I can't wait" is a cliché that many of us on Native social media are uttering. It doesn't do justice, though, to the emotion this cover generates. I'll close with the word 'yes' -- in Tewa (my language). That feels right.

Hąą!