Where hope lives : an examination of the relationship between protagonists and education systems in contemporary native North American young adult fiction

• Main Author: Grant, Brianne Alia May
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2009
• Subjects: Indian; anishina*
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/7322

Indigenous children’s and young adults’ literature remains in the margins of the academic community – either misidentified as multicultural fiction or left aside in favour of critiquing controversial literature produced by non-Aboriginal writers. Through children’s and young adults’ literature, Aboriginal writers are expressing their own perspectives on the way Western education has affected and continues to affect their lives, and these representations present a significant contribution to the way North American children learn about the history of Aboriginal relations with the dominant society. My thesis examines education issues in a representative sample of contemporary Aboriginal young adult fiction. It is innovative in its application of several forms of Indigenous theory, which provide rich and complex insights into the political and social circumstances of the Aboriginal protagonists. Relationships between land, community, and identity are examined in The Porcupine Year by Anishinabe writer Louise Erdrich, Good for Nothing by Métis author Michel Noël, No Time to Say Goodbye: Stories of Kuper Island Residential School by Sylvia Olsen with Tsartlip community members Rita Morris and Anne Sam, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Spokane / Coeur D’Alene writer Sherman Alexie. Drawing primarily on the critical writing of Robert Warrior, Craig S. Womack, and Kimberly Blaeser, this thesis examines issues of land, community, and identity as manifested in education systems affecting Aboriginal peoples. The primary works for this thesis all convey an unresolved paradox of hope and hopelessness through the contrast between the historical and political context and the protagonists’ emotional strength and connection to their communities and homelands.