Thursday, April 3, 1997
Today, many of us are caught up in the blitzkrieg of mass media
imagery. Consequently, the media is affecting the way we relate to
each other. Our modes of communication are changing at a breakneck
rate and, as our global community expands, interconnection within
our local communities is breaking down.
So, when a writer emerges whose words draw us back into a more
personal realm, where the images are born from emotion and the
stories are handcrafted from experience, the event is significant.
Greg Sarris is one such storyteller.
Strongly influenced by his close relationship with celebrated
Pomo Indian medicine woman, Mabel McKay, Sarris’ approach to Native
American literature is strikingly personal and human. He
underscores the importance of ancient verbal tradition and its
ability to teach and draw people together.
As a professor, author and chairman of his Pomo Indian tribe,
Sarris is able to facilitate intercultural dialogue. In an
exclusive Daily Bruin interview, the author of "Grand Avenue"
explores issues facing today’s Native Americans and expounds on our
ability to transcend the walls that stand between cultures.
Verbal storytelling is at the heart of Native American culture.
And it’s an element that seems to be missing from "American"
culture. In today’s fast-paced society, most verbal storytelling is
about what has happened at lunch or on the X-Files. Do you feel
more and more Americans are becoming detached from their cultural
history as a result?
It’s not so much that people get detached from their cultural
history; it just becomes something else. Part of the thing about
having an oral tradition where people are telling stories is that
people are taking time; they are talking to one another; they are
often talking to family members or friends. So stories are
associated with a person  with a place. Oral storytelling has
traditionally been connected to family and environmental situations
that are very specific.
Today, with mass media, people are detached from history in that
they are not reminded. That’s one of the consequences. When people
are just watching television, they are getting history through
sound bytes. When you can watch thousands dying in Rwanda, and
then, a moment later, the television cuts to a story about Frank
Sinatra’s heart condition, then to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest
movie, it all gets reduced to a level where you become numb. So you
have things thrown at you with no person or meaning behind it.
Also, with television or the news, things go in, but they don’t
necessarily get regurgitated  thought about and then sent
back out. Images are planted in us, but, often, we don’t think
about them. Now, when I tell you a story, you have to imagine
it.
I think that is one of the reasons Native Americans are so
prevalent right now in the verbal arts. They come from oral
storytelling traditions, so they are used to telling stories and
imagining the people and settings.
Today’s culture is becoming something else. We are becoming
isolated. For the most part, we watch things alone, we act alone.
So, even in huge urban areas, we are becoming increasingly isolated
individuals. At the same time, we are getting exposed, via
electronic media, to more and more of the world. That’s the irony.
We are becoming exposed to, and having closer contact with,
different cultures, yet we are living more and more isolated
lives.
The consequences are dangerous. As a teacher I try to engage my
students in conversations about the books and, more and more, I
find that many students don’t participate. And, of course, your
first suspicion is that they haven’t read the book. But I give them
pop quizzes and, lo and behold, they have read the book. More and
more, students are reading the same way they watch MTV, which means
that things go in, but they don’t think about it. They get all the
images, they know what’s there, but they are not prepared to think
about it because they haven’t grown up hearing stories from elders
or reading. Today, the primary mode of communication and
interaction is the television.
When you teach Native American Literature, you start off by
telling a story. Later, you ask your students to repeat the story.
You’ve written that their responses say a lot about the individual.
What can their responses reveal?
That’s the other great thing about storytelling. No matter how
you are telling a story, in certain ways, you are continuing a
culture. Cultures are always going to be changed.
Because we tell stories differently each time they are passed
on, the perspective grows. It evolves. It keeps moving  it
always has. People have preconceived notions about other people.
You may have notions about me, and I may have notions about you.
But then, if I was to sit here and tell a story about what I think
about you, you’d say,"That isn’t me; that’s his idea of me." And
there is nothing wrong with having an idea, but as soon as we get
those ideas out, then we can talk about it and find out who we are.
What I project onto you or project onto somebody sitting next to me
will ultimately tell me more about myself and how I’m thinking. So
that becomes the basis for a cross-cultural dialogue that I like to
continue through the class. I like to show students that we do have
our biases and (that) we are governed by those biases. The only way
we can deal with them is to talk about them. We always have them,
but biases are not necessarily wrong. They are simply a reflection
of the way we think. Once we acknowledge them, then we can start
exploring the way we think. It’s a trick that I use. I trick
students into exposing themselves. It gets them thinking, but also
I want to get them to relax  to say that it’s okay to have
these biases, everybody does.
We’re supposed to be so politically correct, and pretend we
don’t, which is dangerous, because we are historical individuals.
We are a part of the culture in which we grew up. That doesn’t
change. The best thing we can do is become aware of it …
"Grand Avenue," in various degrees, explores the difficulties
facing Pomo Indians when trying to assimilate into American
Culture. Is assimilation often a threat to a Native American’s
cultural identity?
Identity, like culture, is fluid. It is always in motion. So
today there is not an "Indian" culture distinct from an "American"
culture. In Indian culture, just as with African American culture,
we are Americans also. We are in motion already. The problem is
that people tend to want to see culture or identity as something
that is static  that if it changes they will lose it Â
when actually the walls of culture and identity are porous. Things
go in and out. Music is a great example  jazz, blues. The
great things America has produced, even foods for example, are
results of these mixtures.
The notion of identity is always changing, so there isn’t just
an Indian over here distinct from an American over there. Many
Native Americans think that they have to hold onto being a Native
American, even though they are already thinking in English. But
then they get caught up in that notion you just asked about:
assimilate. To assimilate assumes that you have to give up who you
are and become something else. Instead, let’s think in terms of
integrating rather than assimilating. Native Americans have already
integrated certain elements, so let’s think in terms of integrating
in a positive way, where you take certain things from a culture to
strengthen who you are already. I have many of my ideals and values
from Mabel McKay, but hovering around in buckskins in a bush isn’t
requisite in keeping those ideals and values. Culture and identity
are like water from a spring.
If it’s good stuff, it will mix with everything it touches.
I think most people, including Indians, are still caught in the
notion of assimilation and see it as an either-or situation. But
there is a lot to make them feel that way. There is a lot to make
them feel "out." Prejudice, poverty, the media. All those things
tend to make us feel out so we don’t see the possibility of
integration. It’s the same with African Americans; it’s the same
with lots of groups. We are making art, poetry, music, lots of
wonderful things, and yet we feel we are outside of society. It
makes it difficult to integrate ourselves in a way that we are
empowered.
That ties into the idea of intercultural communication. You have
stressed the need for improvement in this area. From your
experience, do Native Americans feel cut off from "American"
society?
Yes and no. I think we, as Native Americans, are all very aware
of so-called "American" society. We are certainly participating. I
mean, we don’t all live out in the bush. If anything, I think it
consists of socio-economic factors  the same factors that
affect many people across cultures. Poverty, for example, is among
the things that plague us.
Our history  the oppression and the way we have
internalized the oppression  continues to impede our
well-being and our progression so that we stay, in many ways,
extremely poor. Native Americans in the state of California are by
far the poorest group of people. Less than 8 percent are graduating
from high school. Eighty percent are out by ninth grade. And so,
with those kinds of statistics, you can’t help but see a cycle
being perpetuated. Someone might say "well, they’re just lazy and
they don’t want to take advantage of programs and opportunities"
 there are all these things that the big guys say about us.
But look at the history of what school has done to us, from the
missions all the way forward. It’s a repeated pattern where we
don’t feel a part of the process … If you don’t feel a part of
it, what motivates you to belong?
Likewise, if you are brown and round in high school and the
ideal is blonde and thin and Pamela Anderson, are you going to be
compelled to stay and participate? These pressures exist. Native
Americans internalize all this and, as a result, many pull back.
They retreat to the margins of society, which often are the margins
financially and socially.
How do you feel UCLA is doing as far as Native American Studies
programs are concerned?
UCLA has a great Native American Studies program but, again, we
have so few Native American students. Now, and this is a real point
of contention, if you go to the Registrar’s office, they will show
you all these Native Americans we have at UCLA. But these are all
people who checked the boxes on their applications. It is common
for applicants to be an eighth Cherokee, or to have an Indian
grandmother, or something like that, but how many of these are the
students from the poor Indian communities? How many of these are
the Indians from the poor urban areas that we need to be targeting?
If we have so many Native Americans at UCLA, why are there less
than 1 percent of registered Indians in the state of California who
are in college? So there are some real discrepancies. And, while
the Native American Studies program, itself, is good, it is not
responsible for recruiting. It is here to offer studies. Where we
are really lacking is in the area of recruitment.
But there is a good excuse. They can say, "Well we just can’t
get the so-called ‘real Indians’ you are talking about, Greg."
Well, we need to start at the lower rungs. We need to concentrate
on the elementary schools. We need programs to acquaint Native
Americans with higher education in a way they feel they can
participate.
There are elements of your own life in your fiction. Do you feel
fiction should be built from a foundation of autobiographical
events  from personal experience?
I don’t have any strict rule about that, but I think it has to
be built from what a writer knows emotionally.
For example, you might want to be a science fiction writer and
write about space aliens and, even if you haven’t been taken up in
a spacecraft, what you write about will still be based on your
experiences. The way you might write about space aliens, based on
your own themes and the way you grew up, will be different from
somebody else writing on the same subject who grew up differently
from you. So I think you have to write about what you know.
For example, you watch Star Trek now and the themes on the new
shows are very different from what they were originally. They’re
doing very different kinds of things now. So it has to do with the
times and people we know. Star Trek is dealing with issues, such as
racism, that we all know about … For me, what I know comes out of
a particular world and so much of that world is Grand Avenue, where
I grew up. Then I fictionalize that world.
Mabel McKay has certainly been an influential figure in your
life and in your writing.
I tried for about 10 years to find a way to write about Mabel.
Then I got a book contract from UC Press as a part of their
American Genius series. The people at UC Press had a whole list of
people they wanted to cover, including women and minorities. I had
published "Keeping Slug Woman Alive," so they said,"Great, why
don’t you write your book on Mabel McKay." I said "okay," and they
gave me a very small advance. I tried over and over to get going on
it, but I couldn’t. It was due, I think, on Jan. 1, 1994, and they
called me in December 1993 and asked how the book was coming. I
said,"It’s not." They extended the deadline a few months.
That was a real rainy winter here in Los Angeles; it just
poured. It turned out to be the most amazing writing experience I
ever had. In some ways, I wish I had never had it because
everything else has been so hard in comparison. But I sat down in
the middle of January and, in a matter of couple of months, I just
wrote the book  it just fell out. It was done by April or
May, and then it went to the printers around May 30, and she died
the next day.
You wrote that she taught you to see beyond what things seem to
be. What did you mean by that, and what can your readers learn from
Mabel McKay and the figure of the Indian medicine woman?
Being around Mabel was like always being in love. You know, when
you are in love, everything is bright and new and wonderful. She
was always telling me things I didn’t know and reminding me of the
limits of my own thinking. For example, I might say,"Oh, those
people are just those people," and then she would tell me a story
about them that would make me see them in a whole different light.
And that would do two things: It would remind me that I am limited,
and that there is more to the world and everything I see than I
know.
We are trained at the university to be "knowers," to know
everything. Mabel taught me to realize more and more what I didn’t
know  the limits of my thinking. This creates a wonderful
sense of humility. Once you are humble, ironically, the world opens
up to you.
GENEVIEVE LIANG/Daily Bruin
Greg Sarris is one of UCLA’s up-and-coming writers. Behind him
is a picture of his father, who was a boxer and died of alcoholism.
Sarris would like to write a story about him someday.