ABSTRACT
The first Native American literature selections that I read as an undergraduate in a Survey of American Literature course were Zitkala-Ša’s (Yankton Sioux) autobiographical essays in American Indian Stories and Leslie Marmon Silko’s (Laguna Pueblo) “Lullaby.” As did many non-Native female readers, I approached Native American literature with a white feminist sensibility that did not allow me to see or understand these female characters within their own tribal histories and cultures. I simply viewed them as exploited, oppressed, and marginalized women, who had suffered at the hands of the dominant mainstream society. Even in that context, however, I saw a certain determination in these Native characters that I attributed to their strength as women. I projected a definition onto them through my own non-Native lens of what a strong woman is —someone who resists patriarchy.
