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Smith, Paul Chaat - Everything You Know About Indians Is Wrong
This is a collection of fifteen years' worth of essays by Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche), currently the associate curator at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). Many of the pieces turn out to be introductions to specific art exhibits, although while I was reading, I often didn't figure that out until the very last few paragraphs of the essay.
I was reading this mostly as 101 for myself. As such, a lot of what I recall are Smith's frequent indictments of Hollywood and the Hollywood Indian, the Noble Savage of the Distant Past, and how these stereotypes interact with his own conception of himself as an "authentic" Indian, his own ideas about authenticity, and how he frequently felt like a failure for not living up to the Indian Stereotype. As the above indicates, he also talks about other Indians and colonized mindsets. I'm a bit hesitant writing about this part, since I am not Indian, and goodness knows I hate it when outsiders talk about internalized racism in Chinese people. So let us just say that I sympathized a great deal, but won't go so far as to say I empathize, as that implies in some way that I have an equatable experience.
I also came across several quotes that crystallize what I was trying to think about in my Where Is the Indigenous American Fantasy Wiscon panel write up:
Smith also mentions his involvement (and non-involvement) in the AIM in the 70s, and I very much want to read more about the subject. He frequently touches on issues of "Indian art" and "Indian artists," as he writes about feeling divided about the categorization. On the one hand, he is a curator at the NMAI. On the other, he dislikes the way framing someone as an "Indian artist" means that "Indian art" by necessity must be about certain subject matters or from certain POVs; it's a new box that's different from the Wild Western box, but a box just the same.
And this is where I am a bit hesitant writing up thoughts, because I could see myself reading this several years ago and thinking that what he meant was that we should not notice race, that it's not an important category, as opposed to his very nuanced look at the way false categorizations become true through history, the way there was no "Indian" prior to the colonization of the Americas and how the term is a politicized one. It reminded me a bit of the use of "Asian American" as a political term in the 1980s, and how it can be both a demographic and a political identity, how the two are so easily mixed up when there's such a giant tangle of issues underlying those few words, how complicated and messy things are.
No real conclusion, because I'm still thinking through a lot of this. I focused much more on Smith's view of history on this read, largely because that's what's been on my mind lately, but there are many many threads throughout the multiple essays, and maybe next time I will be looking more at AIM, or at notions of ethnicity and art and categorizing artists, or at rewriting stereotypes while also trying not to succumb to them.
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sanguinity's review
I was reading this mostly as 101 for myself. As such, a lot of what I recall are Smith's frequent indictments of Hollywood and the Hollywood Indian, the Noble Savage of the Distant Past, and how these stereotypes interact with his own conception of himself as an "authentic" Indian, his own ideas about authenticity, and how he frequently felt like a failure for not living up to the Indian Stereotype. As the above indicates, he also talks about other Indians and colonized mindsets. I'm a bit hesitant writing about this part, since I am not Indian, and goodness knows I hate it when outsiders talk about internalized racism in Chinese people. So let us just say that I sympathized a great deal, but won't go so far as to say I empathize, as that implies in some way that I have an equatable experience.
I also came across several quotes that crystallize what I was trying to think about in my Where Is the Indigenous American Fantasy Wiscon panel write up:
I have avoided here the usual recitation of broken treaties, massacres, genocide, and other atrocities. It's what we're supposed to talk about, but business as usual has been a dismal failure as far as dialogue goes, and I find guilt trips incredibly boring and useless. So when I say, for example, that the Americas are built on the invasion and destruction of a populated land with hundreds of distinct, complex societies, and a centuries-long slave trade involving millions of Africans, I offer this as an observation that is the minimum requirement for making sense of the history of our countries. (pg. 20, emphasis added)
So unless you can persuade me that Europe would have become rich anyway, the Atlantic slave trade wasn't one of the major events of the past thousand years, and wealth and technologies from America didn't change the world, then I'm going to insist that the Indian experience is at the very center of how the world we live in today came to be. (pg. 85)
Smith also mentions his involvement (and non-involvement) in the AIM in the 70s, and I very much want to read more about the subject. He frequently touches on issues of "Indian art" and "Indian artists," as he writes about feeling divided about the categorization. On the one hand, he is a curator at the NMAI. On the other, he dislikes the way framing someone as an "Indian artist" means that "Indian art" by necessity must be about certain subject matters or from certain POVs; it's a new box that's different from the Wild Western box, but a box just the same.
And this is where I am a bit hesitant writing up thoughts, because I could see myself reading this several years ago and thinking that what he meant was that we should not notice race, that it's not an important category, as opposed to his very nuanced look at the way false categorizations become true through history, the way there was no "Indian" prior to the colonization of the Americas and how the term is a politicized one. It reminded me a bit of the use of "Asian American" as a political term in the 1980s, and how it can be both a demographic and a political identity, how the two are so easily mixed up when there's such a giant tangle of issues underlying those few words, how complicated and messy things are.
No real conclusion, because I'm still thinking through a lot of this. I focused much more on Smith's view of history on this read, largely because that's what's been on my mind lately, but there are many many threads throughout the multiple essays, and maybe next time I will be looking more at AIM, or at notions of ethnicity and art and categorizing artists, or at rewriting stereotypes while also trying not to succumb to them.
Links:
-
sanguinity's review
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This is beautiful.
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I'd like to read his Like a Hurricane. I've been a bit loathe to start with the various AIM autobiographies.
:: or at rewriting stereotypes while also trying not to succumb to them. ::
Thomas King, The Truth About Stories.
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I'm putting Hurricane on my tbr list as well, since I think I want more of an overview of AIM.
Also, thanks for the rec!
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It was a revelation for me -- it gave me permission to stop beating my head against the wall about certain things. Plus how tightly he works the form, and the humor, and just... I really really need my own copy.
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Also got The Truth About Stories, after reading sanginuity's writeup. And forgot I had wishlisted 'Fools Crow.' Gerald Vizenor looks interesting too....?
And then Amazon rec'd me Native American Fiction: A User's Manual. >:-(