Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50957 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Booklist
Addressing the genocide of Native American cultural identity over the past 100 years, this collection of 35 essays by authors representing more than 25 tribal nations is at once eye-opening, brutally frank, and ultimately optimistic. Established writers such as Paula Gunn Allen, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Maurice Kenny, along with a host of emerging writers, teachers, poets, students, and visual artists, have come together, brilliantly elucidating the overlapping causes of the disappearance of tribal identity. These include the move by 60 percent of Native Americans to urban areas, the dissipation of Native languages, gradual assimilation into the non-Native society and the resulting mixed parentage of many young Native Americans, and media stereotyping and its concomitant racism. Every reader will feel a call to action after finishing this informative volume, whether he or she is a non-Native who realizes the need for the banning of Indian sports mascots or a Native moved to dedicate more time to passing on tribal language and tradition to the next generation. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

great book for the reality of todays' world
I am still reading this addictive collection of personal essays about being a native american in today's America. It makes you laugh and cry and really ponder what the next step for native americans - self identified or otherwise - ought to be. The essays are sometimes very challenging and certainly function as an antidote to the Dances With Wolves type ideology. Reading this book has made me re-think my own heritage, and ultimately helped me to feel more clear about it means to have a native american legacy, acknowledging the responsibilities which come with that. In graduate school, one of the first things I learned was not to essentialize, that is to avoid painting the members of any kind of group with the same broad brush. Everyone has their own story to tell - their own unique and 'situated knowledges'. This collection of essays really brings this home, in a beautiful, accessible, diverse blend of writings which I have loved to dip into and taste. You have to take the bitter with the sweet, but there is much here to refresh the spirit. I think this text would be great in a classroom setting, as well as a great personal read for anyone - regardless of their ancestry.

Genocide of the Mind - A captivating read
GENOCIDE OF THE MIND - New Native American Writing

Having a genuine interest and concern in the contemporary issues confronting Native Nations and their respective communities today, I found this book, by Native writers, to be a totally absorbing and captivating literary work.

How refreshing it is, at last, to have a host of Native writers from various Nations, diverse geographical locations and different personal and professional backgrounds address their issues and to share their own lives and innumerable experiences with us, the readers. The spirit contained within the words of this exceptionally well-written, thought-provoking tome, reaches right out from the pages to embrace, envelope and captivate the reader from the very outset.

Make no mistake - these are hard-hitting short auto-biographies, long overdue and at last dispensing with the shroud of myths, wealth of stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding Native American Indian people - the writers do not pull their punches and rightly so. This is a book that tells how it has been, how it is and the many aspirations for how it could be. This is a book that expresses the, at times, overwhelming hurts, the all consuming pain, the denial, the shared fears, the justifiable anger, the numerous abuses, the frustrations and the many disappointments that have had to be endured by Native American Indian People. The accounts within its pages address the lies, the deceit and to any decent human being, the abhorrent and despicable mistreatment meted out to Native People in its entire perverse, covert guises and overt forms. However, what is also readily apparent and conveyed to the reader is the desire to forgive, to heal from past hurts and to take a renewed cultural pride in being a Native individual combined with a sense of urgency to retrieve, restore, teach and maintain Native languages, Traditions, Customs and Ceremonies, for the benefit and well-being of future generations.

This is an intense, dramatic, uplifting and at times, moving `roller-coaster' ride into the annals of European/American and Native relations. After more than 500 years this book more than amply highlights the fact that as Nations and peoples with their own cultures, languages, Traditions, Customs, values and belief systems, they always have been and continue to remain woefully misunderstood by mainstream American society. In my estimation, this book should be compulsory reading in schools throughout the United States, Canada and even here in the United Kingdom. Thereby, educating and raising awareness into an era of history and current contemporary issues that have been misinterpreted, misrepresented, entirely misunderstood and incorrectly portrayed, in books, media and film.

In conclusion, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is genuinely interested in learning `how it is' for the Indigenous People of the North American Continent, today. As stated on the review on the back panel of the book, it brings the Native experience into the 21st Century and in my personal opinion not a moment too soon.

This review would not be complete if I failed to express my gratitude to the Native writers who have chosen to address their issues, share their own lives and personal experiences with us the readers. To each of these contributors, I would like to convey with respect. . . .

Chi Mii-gwech, Nya wenha and Ama' ya

Genocide of the Mind: New Native American Writing
I really appreciate the fact that this book was written from the american indian perspective. This perspective is highly undervalued in historically white supremacist america. I got to read from people from different tribal nationhoods and different ages and stages of life. Part 5 "Who We Are and Who We Are Not" was particularly amazing. I liked Paula Gunn Allen's (Laguna/Metis) piece, "'Indians', Solipsisms, and Archetypal Holocausts" and the surreal poetry and writing of Carter Revard (Osage father) "Postcolonial Hyperbaggage: A Few Poems of Resistance and Survival" Each section of the book is educational and culturally enriching. I love the cover design.

The mascot issue is still pervasive in the american mainstream. People think of Indians as less real as if their opinion doesn't matter anymore. It's like they forget the mainstream just happily, comfortably, and complacently forgets that Native Americans even exist. It's sick. A mental illness that pervades society. That is not how you treat a fellow HUMAN BEING on the planet. How can you claim to be a progressive democratic union when you blatantly misuse stereotypical images of "savage" "ignorant" "crazy" CARICATURED minority populations in order to propel the spirit of aggression in a measly sporting event? Wake up and look in the mirror america... this is reality. This is what is going on in 2003. Meanwhile many natives have given up on life and turned to self sabotaging behavior. People forget about them, they become invisible, their issues and concerns don't matter and the end result is often a deep sense of meaninglessness on what is supposed to be your people's sacred home lands...

I'm glad I read this book. I highly recommend it!

I not an american indian myself. I am igbo from west africa.

blessings...