Native American Writing Response Blog

One theme I saw in most of the readings was the importance of books and the knowledge that they possess, and how they’ve influenced Native American culture. Sherman Alexie talks about how he and his classmates were expected to fail as Indians in a non-Indian world and were directed towards failure in school because of expectations set for them. He explains that he read books every night after school, and learned more than he ever could from a biased school system by putting in the effort to indulge in literature. He was able to rise above his classmates and the expectations and even write his own books one day, in the hopes to do what books did for him as a child for other children around the world. Near the end of his writing, he talks about how some students refused to read books when he tried to explain how important they are to them, which made him upset as he knew they were being denied knowledge. 

The sermon preached by Samson Occom for Moses Paul serves as another example of how books, even in the earliest writing by a Native American, should be valued for the knowledge they possess. Samson explains that the world is already full of hundreds of books discussing every topic you could think of and that the most excellent writers are disregarded, leaving him no reason to write in the same way. He also explains that he will talk in a more common way so that the audience can understand him, as literature is commonly written in a way that would be difficult for an average person to understand. By explaining that literature is difficult to understand, he’s supporting the idea that books are full of knowledge and are important as it takes a different kind of perspective and intelligence to truly understand them. It’s very interesting that books were one of the more important themes in the writings that we read about Native Americans, but I think it makes sense that books are an important part of Native American culture, or any culture, as they’re a consistent way to gain new knowledge and a universal way to communicate with others.