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Introduction to “From Fiction to Future: Key Figures in Ethnic Studies and Creative Writing”

While a strong social movement is ideally decentralized, it is nonetheless important to appreciate the skills and contributions of stand out activists. We can be inspired by our peers and predecessors without idolizing them. Another key facet of social movements is the progressive potential of art and how it interacts with our daily lives. Art comes in many forms but I will focus primarily on my area of expertise: creative writing. Over the last three quarters, I have explored important creative works from several different authors to explore the relationship between literature and ethnic studies. For the purposes of this project, I will be focusing on three Black Indigenous Women of Color authors: Octavia Butler, Zitkala Sa, and Gloria Anzaldúa. For each author, I provide a brief bio of their major works and contributions to ethnic studies. Then, I delve in deeper and explore explicit themes present throughout their texts and how they influence and inspire activists, scholars, and authors. Finally, I have written three creative works of my own that draw influence from and reflect on each author’s writing. Citations for images and cited works can be found at the end of the document.

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Octavia Butler - Bio

Octavia Butler was a MacArthur Genius winning science fiction writer born in 1947. Butler’s major works include Parable of the Sower and its sequel Parable of the Talents, Kindred, Fledgling, the Lilith’s Brood series, and several short stories including “Blood Child” and “The Evening and the Morning and the Night.” Grounding most of her work in speculative science fiction, Butler imagined different ways that the world could be and where it is headed now if we don’t change our current neoliberal ways of being. In turn, Butler imagined possibilities for transformative justice and new forms of kinship ties. These potential  kinds of communities and avenues for social justice influence us today.

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Octavia Butler - Overall Takeaways and Analysis

In addition to imagining queer relationships and a third gender option, Butler prompts us to re-examine the role of toxic masculinity and virility in our movements. Time after time, the toxic man in the community causes problems that cause not only himself but the rest of the community to be in trouble. Keith in Parable of the Sower becomes too impulsive and leaves the community, causing his own death and creating the potential for a break in. Curt in the Xenogenesis books attacks the aliens that are trying to help him because he feels that they are stifling his free will and ends up getting himself killed by a reflexive sting as he punches one of the Oankali. In contrast, Gan in the short story “Blood Child” gives himself up to the alien that his family lives with so that his sister does not have to carry the alien eggs and potentially die in the process of extracting the alien larva when they hatch. Butler prompts us all, especially men, to re-evaluate our need to be constantly in control and be comfortable letting others take care of us and doing reproductive labor like taking care of others in the community.

Butler’s Parable of the Sower is ripe with teachings that apply to ethnic studies work and organizing. For instance, the central philosophy of ‘Earthseed’ that defies change but not in a way that absolves us of our responsibilities to the earth and to each other. We must be flexible and willing to adapt to the world around us lest we get left behind and trap ourselves in a deadend. Furthermore, the Earthseed religion and community reminds us of the basics of kinship. Rather than competing for limited resources in a capitalist, zero-sum game, we can share with each other and protect each other in order to ensure everyone gets what they need. Ultimately, one of the key questions posed at the end of Parable of the Sower is one of land: should we settle among the stars, what is our responsibility to the earth here? This question prompts us to re-examine our relationship with the land that we live on and engage Indigenous communities to create a world that addresses the needs of everyone as best as it can despite the incommensurability of our positionalities.

Kinship is not limited to Parable of the Sower. In her lesser known works, Butler struggles with power dynamics and new kinds of familial structures in the Xenogenesis trilogy and Fledgling. The Xenogenesis books imagine a parental configuration after a fictional alien species, the Oankali, makes contact with humans and integrates with them. There is a third sex option: the ooloi who links male and female and is responsible for healing and genetically altering the world around it. This theoretical third sex/gender pushes us to think outside of binaries and imagine what new forms of gender and sex identities we can tap into as our society and sense of self and kinship changes. Fledgling, a vampire story, takes a familiar genre and re-imagines the vampire as a polyamorous, bisexual being that forms a symbiotic relationship with human beings that is more mutualistic than parasitic. The formation of vampire communities is a fictional microcosm of different types of communities and kinship that are more open and welcoming than the nuclear, biological family that racial capitalist society upholds as ‘normal.’

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Octavia Butler - Response Piece

Octavia Said:

“Why is the universe? 

To shape God. 

Why is God?

To shape the universe.” 

Why are we? What purpose do we serve?

To shape and be shaped by God. 

We must be adaptable and we must always feel

In the dark, wet cave where we are waking

waking with our stomachs and minds empty 

(lonely)

Hungry… 

As our senses return to us with our 

Vampiric vision, our sensory arms’ affinity for 

Biodiversity, our compassion and our love for survival: We

must keep our hands outstretched, always touching 

biting, changing, loving, and holding each other

Feeling each other for wounds and for pleasure.

No one person can lead the way alone.

We must be a community, a group of refugees united

We must link hands and ooloi arms, 

We must protect our loved ones asleep on the raft

And guard each other carefully around the sputtering fire at night.

Do not become stiff. Do not become solitary. 

Do not become greedy.

God will challenge you.

God will send a crack of lightning

That illuminates the webs woven around your waist

As it strikes you down and breaks you from your connections.

God will challenge you to your last breath

Reach into yourself and each other! With many

Hands you will be able to plant enough seeds to feed

Yourself, your lovers, your family, your strangers

Grow the fruits of earth and beyond, 

Pass these fruits of wisdom on to the children 

Who may seek the stars or find that the stars are already here:

The dirt and our bodies made from their dust.

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Zitkala Sa - Bio

Born in 1976, Zitkala Sa, also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was an Indigenous creative writer, composer, and political activist. Sa wrote notable works including the essay “Why I Am Pagan,” a myth collection of traditional Dakota oral stories “Old Indian Legends,” and the autobiographical “American Indian Stories.” In addition to her prolific writing, Sa became the first Indigenous person to co-write an opera: “The Sun Dance Opera” that corresponded to the technically illegal Indigenous religious ceremony. Sa’s multi-media works inspire us to unite our art and our activism.

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Zitkala Sa - Overall Takeaways and Analysis

Zitkala Sa was a master storyteller who used her art to reinforce the life and vibrancy of her Indigenous culture. Perhaps the most groundbreaking example is the Sun Dance Opera. Breaking history as the first Indigenous woman to co-author an opera, Sa mixed English and the Dakota language with a mixed-ancestry cast to tell a story about the Sun Dance ceremony. In 1883, the US government outlawed the 3,600 year old (Douville) tradition of the Sun Dance with the Indian Religious Crime Codes in order to assimilate Indigenous people and destroy their culture. However, Sa found an extralegal way to bypass this genocidal law: art. Some may consider the problematics of the production in practice: the majority of the roles in the opera were played by white actors while Indigneous people played background roles. While this is not ideal, the opera still created a place to practice Indigenous religion and provided a space for Indigenous actors to perform. Furthermore, the Dakota language and Indigenous instruments were essential to the opera and given their light in which to shine. Thus, I possit this opera as a decolonial act of resistance because of its reverence for Indigenous tradition even its settler colonial entanglements. 

Beyond the operatic scene, Sa connected with Indigenous modes of performance and storytelling in her book “Old Indian Legends.” This book records Sa’s versions of oral stories she was told in Dakota spaces. A key figure in the book and Dakota mythology is Iktomi, the trickster spider spirit who is always getting himself into trouble. In Sa’s “Iktomi and the Fawn,” Iktomi transforms himself into an arrow and a bird and even attempts to give himself dappled spots like a fawn. The easy fluidity between forms breaks down binaries, especially the human/nonhuman binary that is so rigidly enforced in Eurocentric culture. From this fluidity, we can draw inspiration. When we refuse to privilege ourselves over the natural world, we open ourselves up to new connections and new inspirations. Furthermore, we are disinclined from capitalist modes of being that center exploitation of the land rather than a mutualistic relationship with it. 

Perhaps the most explicitly decolonial of her works is Sa’s autobiographical “American Indian Stories” and the essay “Why I Am Pagan.” “Why I Am Pagan” further emphasizes Indigenous ways of being in terms of religion and connection to the world around us as opposed to the fear-mongering that hegemonic Christianity relies upon for control. Her choice of the word “pagan” can also be connected to the Celtic pagan religion in places like Ireland. In “Old Indian Legends,” the character Iktomi is often drawn with pointed ears which are also associated with Celtic fae creatures. Thus, Sa’s use of paganism and pointed ears suggests a broader connection acrossed colonized contexts as well as the potential for solidarity. In “American Indian Stories,” Sa examines the violence of education that she endured at Indian boarding schools and calls out the American government for its genocidal violence. 

Sa dedicated most of her life not only to writing but community organizing. From this legacy, we can appreciate the importance of art and its ability to spark action. Art can’t change the world but it is a start and it should compel us to do organizational work. We can break down the binaries that confine us, respect Indigenous culture and ways of being, and forge meaningful solitarities in response to the oppressive hegemonic forces that attempt to manipulate us.

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Zitkala Sa - Response Piece

Not long ago, an oil company decided that it would be in their best interest to transport oil in a pipeline running through the Dakotas rather than in trucks. They did not care that their pipelines would run near Indigenous water supply or that pipes are prone to leaks. They thought it was cheaper and they could not find it in their hearts to care about anything apart from financial profit. 

Not only did the oil pipeline run near Indigenous land, it ran through Iktomi’s home on the prairie. One day, a loud drilling woke him from his sleep early in the morning.

“Those drills are shriller than the most obnoxious bird and those hammers are louder than buffalo in a brawl,” he said to himself. 

Determined to silence the noise, he walked over to the construction site. “What do you think you’re doing making all this noise so early in the morning?”

The foreman at the construction site brandished a piece of paper. “We are authorized to start building the oil pipeline right here and now, in the middle of nowhere where no one lives.”

“Excuse you, I live near enough to be bothered by your construction,” Iktomi said. A smile curled his lips as an idea popped into his mind. “Say, you want to build an oil pipeline? Well, this isn’t quite the right place. You should go over to the play right over the hill, just over there. The ground is less rocky so it would be easier to work with.”

Shrugging, the foreman said; “I’ll ask the boss.”

Leaving the construction site, Iktomi wandered over to the plain he was talking about where a great herd of buffalo lived. The chief of the buffalos came to greet him. “Hello Iktomi, what are you doing here?”

“My friend, I need a favor.” 

The chief sighed: he knew Iktomi’s favors were never simple and that he never wanted to do honest work. “What is it?”

“There are a group of dangerous looking men who are building a pipeline right next to my home. The construction is so loud that I can’t sleep! I told them to think about building in your plain-”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because they don’t know you’re here. If they survey the land, you can surround them. In the meantime, I can dismantle what they already built. We can scare them away so that they don’t build anything here or near me.”

“What do I get out of it?”

“You get clean water! Even if you can’t hear the construction, the water that we drink comes from the same place and the pipeline will contaminate all of it and make us all very sick. These men don’t realize that while they make paper money, they are poisoning everyone including themselves.”

“That’s wise of you to say, Iktomi. Fine, we shall scare the humans when they come to survey our land.”

A few days later when the oil company sent out surveyors, it was a foggy morning and they did not see the buffalo until they were surrounded. Shouting, they tried to hold their ground but the buffalo began to stampede and the men ran away. Even from the original construction site where Iktomi had knocked down the structures and torn up the paper, he could hear the screams. Laughing, he said: “The hammer might be louder but the buffalo’s horns are far more powerful.”

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Gloria Anzaldúa - Bio

Gloria Anzaldúa was born in South Texas near the US border in 1942. As a Mestiza lesbian woman, Anzaldúa was well accustomed to liminal spaces and the workings of heteropatriarchy and white supremacy. Mastering the ability to fluctuate between prose and poetry as well as between English and Spanish, Anzaldúa authored the famous Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza and co-edited This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color with Cherrie Moranga. Anzaldúa’s perspective on identity and finding power in oneself influences the foundation of organizing and ethnic studies/feminist work to this day.

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Gloria Anzaldúa: Overall Takeaways and Analysis

Moreover, Anzaldúa’s organizing in the larger context of the Third World Women’s movement has meaningful implications for the field of ethnic studies now. A hallmark example of Anzaldúa’s work is This Bridge Called My Back, which she co-edited with Cherríe Moraga. The book includes the works of many significant women of color writers but also several interviews with women of color activists that Anzaldúa conducted herself. This collection responds to the racism of the hegemonic Feminist movement as well as the sexism of movements like the Black Power and Chicano movements. Thus, this collection provides a space for an intersectional commentary and centers the needs of women of color, especially querr women of color. In this way, Anzaldúa’s work is ground breaking and she provides a platform not only for her own ideas but her fellow feminists of color.

The key themes from Anzaldúa’s work that I will be focusing on are the Coatlicue State and the Mestiza Consciousness. In Borderlands/La Frontera, Anzaldúa is focused substantially on introspection and what lies within us. An image that runs throughout the work is that of the serpent - something powerful, dangerous, feminine, and primordial. This motif is explicitly tied to the Aztec deity Coatlicue, a goddess with a serpent’s head and a belt of human skulls who embodies both birth and death (Borderlands 68). The evocation of this Indigenous divinity to personify the state of introspection creates a distinctly gendered and Mestiza/Indigenous consciousness. The process of reaching into oneself is one that requires you to tackle issues of gender and race/indigeneity that cannot be swept aside. To enter the Coatlicue State is dangerous for oneself and others but ultimately it is necessary: it will grant you the autonomy that you need to navigate the world and allow you to truly know yourself. The creative, evocative power of the Coatlicue State is something that especially creative ethnic studies scholars need to think about: what does it mean to really reach into ourselves and look our primordial powers in the eyes? What destructive and creative potential do we achieve from potent reflection?

From the Coatlicue State, Anzaldúa explores the less mysterious but no less powerful ‘Mestiza Consciousness.’ In Borderlands/La Frontera, Anzaldúa explores how people with multiple marginalized identities are able to create a more provocative, intersectional analysis than people who just focus on one axis of oppression. Furthermore, to be a Mestiza is to occupy a liminal space between cultures that makes one strong and able to navigate complex issues. Scholar Chela Sandoval articulates the concept of ‘differential consciousness’ that allows one to use and switch between different social justice approaches and ideologies as the need arises, explicitly connecting this to Anzaldúa’s Mestiza Consciousness. Anzaldúa draws on the Aztec tradition of the nahual, a shaman who is able to travel between different realms and transform oneself and others into different forms. Thus, a diverse, mixed, and intersectional group of scholars are the best bet of making meaningful, lasting change in the world. 

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Response Piece to Gloria Anzaldúa

When we have reached into our navels

Unleashing the lizards, the cacti

the tarantulas and sunflowers, 

and the many serpents with their old

skin flaking off and their fangs full of venom;

When we have found the primordial serpent

with her belt of human skulls jangling around her waist

When we have meet the eyes of Medusa and been turned to stone

When we look Coatlicue in her snake’s face

And she springs forward to devour us whole

When we implode within ourselves in the darkness;

Only then can we know ourselves and each other,

Becoming immune so long as we continue to 

Return to the deiss of destruction 

We continue to shed our skin and be reborn;

The poison in our mouths now bitter sweet.

Within the Coatlicue state, there is much potential and much danger. We must reach within ourselves to truly understand who and what we are. We must better understand what we want of ourselves and each other. Acts of creative destruction and destructive creation are essential to social movements and creating a decolonized world. 

I have my own desires, and you have yours. There are many things I will not let you take from me but I am willing to give to you. I will support you and hope that you support me. We have our differences and our needs may never be precisely the same but they may align like fortuitous constellations or overlap in lagoons. With a mix of fresh and saltwater, it is hard to survive but if our gills can adapt, in time, we will be able to go through any channel we need. I am not Mestiza but I understand some of the functions of your consciousness, or I think I do. Please correct me when I am wrong. I will be wrong many times and you may be too but you need me and I need you. Together, when we set our heels in solidarity, the small fibers in the net can hold incredibly heavy loads when woven together tightly.

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Works Cited

Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/LaFrontera: The New Mestiza, Aunt Lute Books, 1987.

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Zitkala-Sa". Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Feb. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zitkala-Sa. Accessed 4 May 2021.

Butler, Octavia. “Blood Child.” Blood Child and Other Stories, Four Walls Eight Windows, 1995.

Butler, Octavia. Dawn (Xenogenesis Book 1), Grand Central Publishing, 1987. 

Butler, Octavia. Fledgling, Jane Langton, 2005.

Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower. Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993.

De Cora, Angel. “There among them stood Iktomi in brown buckskins.” Ginn & Company, 1901, https://acdc.amherst.edu/view/asc:481051/asc:481598/FULL_SIZE. Accessed 15 Feb 2021.

Lawlor, Veronica. “Portrait of author Gloria Anzaldua, commissioned for the American Writers Museum, Chicago.”

Orlando, Jade. “Octavia Butler.” https://br.pinterest.com/pin/760263980827745340/?amp_client_id=CLIENT_ID(_)&mweb_unauth_id={{default.session}}&simplified=true. 

Sa, Zitkala. American Indian Stories. Washington Hayworth Publishing House, 1921.

Sa, Zitkala. “Iktomi and the Fawn.” Old Indian Stories, Ginn & Company, 1901. 

Sa, Zitkala. Why I Am A Pagan. Atlantic Monthly, 1902.

Salvo, Victor. “Gloria E. Anzaldúa - Nominee.” edited by Owen Keehnen, The Legacy Project, https://legacyprojectchicago.org/person/gloria-e-anzaldua. 

Sandoval, Chela. Methodology of the Oppressed, University of Minnesota Press, 2000. 

“Victor Douville Oral Tradition OSEU 5.” YouTube, uploaded by Wo Lakota, 23 May 2017, https://www.wolakotaproject.org/oseu-five-oral-tradition-victor-douville/.

“Videodokumentation zur Sun Dance Opera.” YouTube, uploaded by Palisander Verlag, 30 Dec 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=259&v=DNP_4MDuG_A&feature=youtu.be.

Win, Wambli Sina. “The Ultimate Expression of Faith, the Lakota Sun Dance.” Native Times, 03 July 2011, https://www.nativetimes.com/life/commentary/5657-the-ultimate-expression-of-faith-the-lakota-sun-dance. Accessed 15 Feb 2021.

“Zitkala Sa.” https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/zitkala-sa/m01chgp?categoryid=historical-figure. Accessed 26 Jan 2021.