RAIN IS NOT MY INDIAN NAME

RAIN IS NOT MY INDIAN NAME

by Cynthia Leitich Smith

 

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Smith, Cynthia Leitich. (2001). RAIN IS NOT MY INDIAN NAME. New York: Harper Collins.
       ISBN 0-688-17397-7.

 

PLOT SUMMARY:

On the eve of her 14th Birthday, Cassidy Rain Berghoff loses her best friend Galen in a tragic car accident. This grief, compounded by the loss of her mother, causes her to shut herself away from the world. Her father is away in the Air Force, so she lives with her Grampa, her older brother Fynn and his fiance Natalie. Her brother Fynn urges her to attend her Aunt Georgia's Indian Camp. Although she is Muskogee--Creek--Cherokee on her mother's side and Ojibway--Saginaw Chippewa on her father's side, she is reluctant to be "Indian" (p.20). She does attend the camp, but only as a photo journalist for the local paper. The camp experience helps her to reconnect with her heritage and her friends, make new friends, and fight for the city funding of the Indian Camp. It is through the story and through Rain's journal entries and passion for photography that we see her finally healing from the loss and grief in her life.

 

 

CRITICAL ANALYSIS:

       This novel is one that any young person can relate to. It resonates with its story of first love, a first kiss, loss of friends and family, overwhelming grief, of being different in a small town, and making and losing friends.

The author intersperses the novel with cultural markers to transform this story about a teenage girl into one about a modern Native American teenage girl. On p.6 she tells about visiting a Lakota powwow in Oklahoma City where she takes a picture of a girl in a rose-quilted shawl dancing to the rhythm of the Drum. On page 12 she mentions that her great grandmother and her Aunt Georgia's mother grew up at Seneca Indian School in Oklahoma. When her brother's fiance tells Rain on page 77 that they are going to name the baby they are expecting Aiyana, she says in the narrative, "Aiyana is an old name, a musical name. My mom's name, after her Cherokee great-grandmother. It means 'forever flowering'." On page 120, Rain shares her memories of traveling with her mother when she was 7 years old to Oklahoma for powwows, picnics, and dances. The beautiful passage follows: I can still smell the pork cooking, taste the lukewarm coleslaw, hear the songs, and feel the rhythm of the shellshakers. I remember ribbons and tear dresses and me trying to dance like Mama. Echoes of stories, the snapping of fire. Smoke rising to heaven, and how it stung my eyes. Talk of the corn and of the New Year.

       In several instances, Rain mentions some of the stereotypes and insensitivity that bother her. On page 12 she says that she is opposed to attending the Indian Camp because she thinks a bunch of rich, white kids will probably prance around calling themselves "princesses," "braves," or "guides." On page 13 she continues and says that at school the subject of Native Americans only comes up around Thanksgiving and features sterotyped images. One of my favorite parts of the book is on page 44 where Rain decides to do a report on an Indian woman. The library only has two historical Indian women to choose from: Sacajawea or Pocahontas. She decides to do her report on former Kansas senator Nancy Kassebaum. On page 48, her fellow journalist Flash asks her how many Indians in the camp are acutally from Hannesburg. What pops into her head is the nursery song about counting "little Indians" and how much she dislikes that song. She talks about her distaste for the phrase, "You don't seem Indian to me" and how most people's perceptions center around construction paper feathers, plastic horses, and Pocahontas dolls. She also exhibits distaste for the "guru-seeking, crystal-waving, long-lost descendant of an Indian 'princess'" kind of person on page 70.

       Finally, Rain learns some lessons of her own about culture and identity when her second best friend Queenie, who is African American, finds out about her Seminole heritage (p.133) and when her journalist friend Flash reveals that he is Jewish (p.115). The message is very clear in this novel that Native American kids are like any other kids and want to have a modern and realistic portrayal of them--not some idealized, historical, or just plain wrong image. So, what's the theme of the Indian Camp? Bows and arrows? Weaving? Storytelling? No, a modern camp for Indian children is about science and engineering, and building bridges--in more ways than one.

 

AWARDS:

Dishchii'Bikoh High School Reader Award. DHS is on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in eastern Arizona.

Smith named a Writer of the Year (Children's Prose) by Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers in recognition of the novel
Finalist, children's/YA division, the Oklahoma Book Award
Featured title, GREAT BOOKS FOR GIRLS by Kathleen Odean (Ballantine, 2002)
Featured title, St. Petersburg Times "You Gotta Read This" Book Club
NEA Native American Book List
Featured title, Texas Book Festival
Featured title, Second National Book Festival.
Book of the Month, Red Tales, Aboriginal Voices Radio
Recommended title, THE CHILDREN’S LITERATURE LOVER’S BOOK by Joanna Sullivan (Jossey-Bass, 2003)
Recommended title, DOES ANYBODY ELSE LOOK LIKE ME? A PARENT’S GUIDE TO RAISING MULTIRACIAL CHILDREN by Donna Jackson Nakazawa (Da Capo Press, 2004)
Recommended title, SEVEN CHOICES: FINDING DAYLIGHT AFTER LOSS SHATTERS YOUR WORLD by Elizabeth Harper Neeld (Warner Books, 2003)
Suggested Title, Recommended Native Literature for Youth Reading Circles from American Experience: "We Shall Remain" (April 2009) from PBS.

 

REVIEW EXCERPTS:

Kirkus Reviews: "Tender, funny, and full of sharp wordplay, Smith’s first novel deals with a whole host of interconnecting issues, but the center is Rain herself. At just 14, Rain and her best friend Galen promise always to celebrate their birthdays; hers on New Year’s Day, his on the Fourth of July. They had just begun to see themselves not just as best friends but as girl and boy that New Year’s Eve night, when Galen is killed in a freak accident. Rain has already lost her mother and her Dad’s stationed in Guam. She’s close to her Grandpa, her older brother, and his girlfriend, who realize her loss and sorrow but have complicated lives of their own. Her response to Galen’s death is tied to her tentative explorations of her own mixed Native American and German/Irish heritage, her need and desire to learn photography and to wield it well, and the general stirrings of self and sex common to her age. Rain has to maneuver all of this through local politics involving Galen’s mother and the local American Indian Youth Camp (with its handful of local Indian teens, and Rain’s erstwhile “second-best friend” who is black). What’s amazing here is Rain’s insight into her own pain, and how cleanly she uses language to contain it". (Fiction. 11-14)

 

School Library Journal: "Rain and Galen have been friends forever, but for Rain's 14th birthday, the thrill of finding that her burgeoning romantic feelings are being reciprocated puts the evening into a special-memory category. The next morning, she learns that Galen was killed in an accident on the way home. Plunged into despair, Rain refuses to attend the funeral and cuts herself off from her friends. Skipping to six months later, the main portion of the story takes place as she thinks about Galen's upcoming birthday and summer plans are complicated by the girl's Aunt Georgia's Indian Camp and political efforts to cut its funding. Rain participates in nothing and her family members, loving though they are, seem preoccupied with their own needs and concerns. Gradually, Rain's love of photography resurfaces and lands her an assignment with the local newspaper. She becomes involved in examining her own heritage, the stereotypical reactions to it, and her own small-town limitations. There is a surprising amount of humor in this tender novel. It is one of the best portrayals around of kids whose heritage is mixed but still very important in their lives. As feelings about the public funding of Indian Camp heat up, the emotions and values of the characters remain crystal clear and completely in focus. It's Rain's story and she cannot be reduced to simple labels. A wonderful novel of a present-day teen and her 'patchwork tribe'."

 

 

CONNECTIONS:

 

The author's website: http://www.cynthialeitichsmith.com/index.html

 

Reading guide: http://www.harpercollins.com/author/authorExtra.aspx?isbn13=9780688173975&displayType=readingGuide