Indigenous Renaissance: Revitalization by Young Native Americans

Arts

Jun 26

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“Chloé, meet Antone,” we shake hands and his grip is warm, “This is my new friend Chloé.” I was pleased to meet the boy I’d been seeing around classes, talking to everyone and laughing a lot. I loved his dark hair and rounded, prominent nose that stuck out of his face in an elegant triangular slope. We spent the rest of the day as friends in between classes, and I learned that Antone Crowe came in a set of four brothers, The Crowe Brothers, a band of brothers inextricably legend to my home town, as musicians and artists.

courtesy of @tonecrowe on Instagram

At the end of the school day, a crisp and gentle September afternoon, I went home with my Nana, telling her of my ninth-grade adventures. When I mentioned the Crowe Brothers she seemed more interested, “Is he an Indian?” I didn’t know, or ever think to ask. I never met other Indians outside of my family.

I would come to find out that the Crowe Brothers were part of the Brothertown Indian Nation, a tribe composed of multiple resettled east coast Algonquin tribes, residing along Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin. It would bubble up eventually, as my nana reminisced about her childhood, that Anna Crowe, a matriarch with a lyrical name, babysat my mother and uncle with her own brood. One of her sons, John, is Antone Crowe’s father. Pouring over an image of a group of black and white sullen Indians, telling stories of the people she knew and how they related to our family and the Crowes.

I listen when my Nana and her siblings talk about the old days, growing up Indian. I long for the pieces that I have been slowly arranging of myself and those before me. But often I fall victim, as many young natives of my generation, to feeling invisible. Racism by systematic erasure of Natives in education, pop culture and news has a negative influence on the societal view of Native rights, but on how Natives view themselves as well.

“Pressure to feel like you’re Native enough can be destructive and hinder people to move forward. Even when they have the agency to do so.”

A 2018 study by Reclaiming Native Truth, explored a host of institutional, social and historical influences on modern Native culture, representation and identity. Focused primarily on building new narratives for indigenous people, the research indicates glaring negative effects from this invisibility. Sample respondents who had little education and awareness of Native plights, were less willing to support the range of social justice issues from treaty rights to eradicating racist mascots. One participant articulated that, “I feel like Native Americans do not experience a great deal of discrimination mainly because I don’t hear about it in the news.” This lack of representation in media and culture reinforces the stigma that Native Americans are a “thing of the past.”

Ironically, my family’s tribe, The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, survived forced land removal, assimilation, brutalization, and attempted genocide, like most tribes, only to be portrayed as if they do not exist. In museums, Indigenous people are represented as they lived in centuries past, enforcing the erasure of our contemporary reality. Activist Somah Haaland, whose mother is congresswoman Deb Haaland, one of the first Native American women in congress, reports that, “In history books, at historical sites, and in museums, Native people are often framed as a people who participated in the making of America but who no longer exist in modern American society.” Since educational media is often aimed at children, this is generally dangerous — but especially when the child is Native. This presents Native identity as something that has come and gone. A retched pill I swallowed as a young girl.

Yet, I am kicking out against external and internal elimination. My friendship with Crowe, the death of my great Grandmother and fluent Potawatomi speaker Che-Quess, and the constant struggle for my identity inspire me to do more and to do it for everyone, not just myself. This sense of purpose and reclamation is surging in younger generations of Native Americans. Many are using art and technology to learn fading tribal languages, continue traditional media like story-telling and enforcing self-care.

*D O I T* BY EDDIE PERROTE, FROM CROWD PAINTINGS, 2014

My cousin Christine Trudeau rerouted her pursuit of the arts towards journalism when she became aware of the great disparity in Indigenous reporting. This “void of coverage” as she puts it, gave her the confidence to manage her learning disability, breakdown the limitations she had placed on herself and confront the privilege that kept her from feeling “native enough.”

“There needs to be someone in the room,” she tells me, as if she is speaking straight to my own insecurity, “Even if it is not someone who is ready.” Trudeau, who is on the Native American Journalist Association’s Board of Directors, uses her educational background to advocate and cover her community, whether she was raised on the reservation or not. “Pressure to feel like you’re Native enough can be destructive and hinder people to move forward,” she advises, “Even when they have the agency to do so.”

“This is somewhat of a cultural renaissance brewing in millennial Native Americans that passes through generations, evident through the arts and through changing social norms.”

As I look up to Trudeau as an elder cousin, I look up to another cousin, Eddie Perrote. Perrote is a freelance illustrator and graphic designer. He believes, like Crowe and Trudeau, that today’s Native youth have a responsibility to “be safe, healthy, and not let trauma and racism continue to damage our communities.” This self-care is a direct reaction to the prevalent feelings of invisibility. Trudeau suggests “reviving yourself” through movement, the outdoors and holding yourself accountable. Crowe stressed taking care of nature as a means of this self-care.

As artists of story-telling, which is deeply rooted in Native culture, Crowe, Perrote and Trudeau are part of the younger Indian Country using relatively new-found accessibility to create and represent. A Choctaw artist, D.G. Smalling is using his voice in the same vein, drawing the parallels of growing inspiration, acknowledging that “Older people who had the misfortune of being conditioned not to celebrate or speak are returning to the culture.”

Smalling continues, “This is somewhat of a cultural renaissance brewing in millennial Native Americans that passes through generations, evident through the arts and through changing social norms.”

The self and societal expunging that goes along with lack of representation stands to battle the liberating and young Indian Country. Toeing the line between representing Native identity without defining oneself with it, we resilient and existent people are still here.

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Chloé Allyn is a poet and visual artist living in Atlanta. She works in many disciplines but specializes in pleasure and words.

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