The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dream - Nasdijj, Timothy Patrick Barru (2020)

Extract

[...] No, he'd rather buy dolls for the girls. He probably remembered how ‘white' children laughed at their old balding dolls. Again, in this chapter there is the theme of being ‘invisible', invisible to the world because you are an ‘other'. VI. Not belonging to any class and loneliness Nasdijj does not only experience physical homelessness but most important he experiences homelessness of the mind. Nasdijj writes because he is lonely most of the time, he has nobody to talk to, he has no home with wife and children waiting for him and smiling. [...]

[...] The children came back to the reservation as strangers, nobody could understand them, they could not understand other people and that was the start of the downfall for generations and generations of Native Americans. Pratt never succeeded in his idea of transforming Indians into white people. He only contributed to an enormous loss of cultural identity and anomic feelings throughout a generation of Native Americans. Nasdijj, in his book, demonstrates so many times his feelings of anomie, loneliness and loss of cultural identity due to generations of intentional abuse towards ‘others'. III. Loss of Cultural Identity First of all, Nadijj defines himself as a mongrel, a half-breed, ‘I am a mongrel myself. [...]

[...] In 1875, Captain Richard Pratt escorted 72 Indians suspected of murdering white settlers to Ste Augustine (Florida). Once there, Pratt began an ambitious experiment, which involved teaching the Indians to read and write English, putting them in uniforms and drilling them like soldiers. ‘I believe in immersing the Indians in our civilization and when we get them under holding them there until they are thoroughly soaked Kill the Indian and save the man' (movie) was Pratt's motto. Pratt's Social Evolutionism ideas are clear throughout the movie. [...]

[...] The Indian cultural ways of life expressed through art, music, dances, literature and other forms of expression are omitted in the white institutional systems. Unfortunately, often times, being an Indian or being an ‘other' is seen in negative terms such as poverty, low socio-economic lifestyle, powerlessness, alcohol/drug abuse and other manifestations of a weak and inferior culture. There is one particular chapter ‘Half and Half' where the author describes poetically the 2 sides of him in a cup of coffee: ‘The coffee is hot. [...]

[...] He feels a lot closer to them and help them the most he can because he knows what it feels like to be an ‘other'. As Nadijj was writing about riding bulls he met Mose Zah. Mose Zah is a cowboy who has AIDS. And, of course, the stereotypes want only homosexuals, and drug addicts to have AIDS. The chapter is called ‘invisibility' because that is what you feel when you are an Indian who has AIDS, invisible ‘Indians on the reservation with AIDS are truly the invisible' (p. 177). The sicker Mose got, the less friends he had. [...]