Reviews for Reinventing the Enemy's Language: Contemporary Native Women's Writings of North America

The average rating for Reinventing the Enemy's Language: Contemporary Native Women's Writings of North America based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-12-22 00:00:00 Anthony Markowski 4.5/5 White men put flesh on dinosaur bones to reconstruct the entire animal, to show they are smarter than the animal they construct out of their own egos. They do the same thing with us by rewriting our history. They do not have to be right, they only have to do the act itself. -Scott Kayla Morrison ("Kela Humma" (Red Hawk)), Choctaw, 'An Apokni by Any Other Name Is Still a Kakoo' If you've been following #NoDAPL at all, you'll know that a recent presidential decision has effectively halted construction of a oil pipeline too toxic for white suburban communities but, apparently, just right for indigenous reservations. This victory seems, perhaps, in the wake of 2016's unique nightmare before the holidays less than it could have been, but it still marks a triumph in the midst of the horror that is 500+ years of rape in terms both archaic and otherwise. Seizure of another's property. Land grab. Woman grab. Children grab. Cultural eradication. Kill the indigenous, save the man. Treaties put into place two centuries and more in place that, despite having been violated less than a week letter, still control the language with which the original inhabitants of what is currently known as the Americas use to refer themselves. Should they refuse this language, they come under the threat of being stripped of what little they have left. What, then is there left to be done? I feel that writing is an act of survival. But there is more than my own survival that is at stake. These days I feel a kind of urgency to reconstruct memory, annihilate the slow amnesia of the dominant culture, and reclaim the past as a viable, if painful entity. -Janice Gould, Maidu Joy Harjo. Janet Campbell Hale. Paula Gunn Allen. Velma Wallis. Leslie Marmon Silko. Elizabeth Cook-Lynn. Linda Hogan. Beth Brant. Wilma Mankiller. Louise Erdrich. These are reinventers of the enemy's language that I and a sizable number of other enemies have come into contact with without having read this compilation. Muscogee. Couer D'Alene. Laguna. Sioux. Athabascan. Crow Creek Sioux. Chickasaw. Mohawk. Cherokee. Turtle Mountain Chippewa. These are the nations I and a sizable number of other enemies are still swallowing up. Scott Kayla Morrison aka Kela Humma, Choctaw. Susan Power, Yanktonnai Sioux. Janice Gould, Maidu. Jeannette Armstrong, Okanagan. These are reinventers of the enemy's language that I found 'striking' and, perhaps mistakenly, believe other enemies have not yet come into with. There are many others, and because I pushed too hard when it came to which women owned their names in artistry and which ones didn't, I can neither create nor ameliorate their author profiles on this particular website. That is probably for the best, though. I already conduct too much free labor for this corporatized library as is. More than half of the states composing the US owe their linguistic sustainability to the indigenous people, metaphorical roots which do little to combat sequestering in reservations and genocide everywhere else. It's not the only reason why I still get friend requests from people with whom a share nearly 300 works, of which a mere three are by women of color, but the situations run on the same fuel. Within the already sunken realm of writings by women of color there is still yet further stratification, and I will admit to having fallen into their trap while devoting two thirds of 2016's reading to this oft neglected but still hierarchical demographic. Good intentions will always pave the road in hell if they are ever considered anything more than a work in progress. I didn't feel rebellious. I felt honest. In the other world of the preparatory school I attended, experience felt abstract, refracted through the distancing process of intellectual analysis. -Susan Power, Yanktonnai Sioux The half star I took off of this is for arbitrary reasons such as personal aesthetics when it comes to compilations such as these, as well as the fact that I couldn't follow my transient reading footprint with a more stable digital directory one. As such, I leave the shinier one up top unmarked, as there is a vast difference between positive ratings for the sake of socioecononmic prosperity and boosting works in order to actively resist annihilation. Nowadays, it is possible for works such as Weweni and Sanaaq to exist, so perhaps the Overton window can be pushed past the need to reinvent the enemy and into the right to exist on less lethally linguistic terms. However, that won't happen on its own, or in a vacuum, or without effort which should rightfully rest on the shoulders of those who rendered the language lethal in the first place, not those doing their best to survive it. #NoDAPL continues on despite assurances of victory, for that is only one branch of the beast sunk into the heart of myriad peoples, and such monstrosities always sleep with one of many eyes open. I watched rocks hurled and smashed into cars of old Mohawk men women and children on a bridge in Montreal and the million-dollar rock slide blockages on ten BC roads after stones rained down rock cliffs on police lifting human blockades protecting the slow disintegration of bones into sand resting under headstones on Liliwat land -Jeanette Armstrong, Okanagan, 'I Study Rocks'

Review # 2 was written on 2014-05-20 00:00:00 Michelle Songer I can't put into words how great this is. Essential, varied, undeniable, painful, funny, enlightening, outstanding. Every page kept me wanting more. Couldn't put it down. Everyone should read this anthology. Understanding the wreckage caused by colonialism that is so relentlessly ignored is crucial; ignoring it is not just inappropriate, it's foolish. These women are strong, inventive and brilliant. The whole anthology is strong and unrelenting